It's funny how you can tell so much about what a kid's personality is going to be like from such a young age. 
When Eric was little, he was constantly trying to take off the outlet covers and plug things in literally almost as soon as he could crawl. (Ugh- talk about freaking a mom out. When he was 3 or 4 he stuck a stinkin' screwdriver in an outlet in the garage and got quite a shock.) We have a picture of him when he was about 2 years old standing on the front steps with an electrical cord. 10 years later, he considers himself "in charge" of all the yearly decorations in the front yard for Halloween and Christmas. I can't imagine what the neighbors thinl- he moves the whole works around at least once a week. Last year for christmas he asked Santa for a 150 ft electrical cord. He stopped playing with toys a long, long time ago. He likes to "work", as in do yardwork, mow lawns, go help out at his grandpa's shop. This is great, but it's like having a 10 year old with the mind of a 40 yr old man.
Holly has always been demanding. I remember them bringing her down the hallway in the middle of the night at the hospital and i knew that one was "mine". She was the whiniest, loudest, clingiest baby you could ever imagine. She's still whiny :) And she's pretty shy until she knows other people. Then she's just loud.
Jake has picked everything green since he could point. Green food, green tshirts, green toys, etc and what do you know, green is his favorite color and crunchy green pea pods are his favorite food.
I am really curious to see what kind of a kid Alli is going to turn into. She is going to be six months old next week. (Six months, I cannot believe it! ) She's starting to get pretty darn antsy and wiggly. You put her on your lap and she rocks all over, pulls your hair, grabs at everything. She always has to be right in the middle of the action. Her favorite place is to sit in her bumbo chair on the counter, but then she's grabbing the bread out of the box and squishing it up, and knocking the kids stuff on the floor. She's fascinated by tinfoil and anything that "crunches", like paper. She's happy 90 % of the time, and then she's happy again if you feed her. (she is totally sitting on my lap right now trying to "type"). I think I might be on my way to having a hyperactive toddler on my hands, she is way more active than any of the other kids ever were!
We had a lot of fun learning how to geocache this week- what a cool idea! The kids now think that the whole world is one big "treasure hunt", we didn't even find anything spectacular yet, but there's some really interesting "caches" in our neighborhood we plan on hunting for soon. If you want to learn how to do it, you can head over to http://www.geocaching.com/. All you really need is a GPS and you need to like running around outside and digging in the dirt and under trees :)
          I discovered a really cool way to help the kids practice their spelling words, and also our addresses and phone numbers. I tested them on the words, and the ones they didn't know we wrote on post-its and stuck to the kitchen wall. (along with the addresses and phone numbers, which will stay up there for awhile.) Every time they're at the kitchen table, i cover up the words one at a time and ask them to spell them. So far it's working really well. It was originally for Holly, but Jake is learning the same words :)
          On the reorganization front, it seems like every time I solve one problem I find another one.  (I think i am overanalyzing us too much lol.) Solved the problem of the collection of backpacks in the hallway by getting a bin that moves out of the closet on mondays and back in on friday afternoon.  I got some hooks in the bathroom for the kids to hang up their towels (because they have a hard time getting them over those long racks), well Eric already broke his. Trying to get them to keep their shoes in the laundry room, and now instead of 10 pairs of shoes in the hallway, I have a pile of shoes at the bottom of the stairs (2 feet away from the laundry room- they're getting closer!) It's always one step forward, two steps back.....
       Yup. They just spilled 300 crayons on the kitchen floor. Sigh.
          

My first attempt at sharing some recipes. Enjoy!

I really like to cook, and I probably spend way more time in the kitchen than i should, but i find a lot of fun in searching out new recipes and trying to get the kids to taste different things. (Not wierd, just different!) i like to cook with simple ingredients that are easy to find, and i like cookbooks with pictures :) My "staple" cookbooks are the good old big red and white Goodhousekeeping, allrecipes.com, and a big stack of Taste of Home magazines.
It is really hard for me to write down recipes, because I am generally a "eyeball it and dump it in person", but here are some favorites in our house!

Ham and cheese crescent rolls-
so simple and yet so yummy and better than hotdogs! we just roll up a few pieces of deli ham and a 1/4 piece of a kraft single in a crescent roll and bake.


Baked Mostaccoli - so easy and the kids ultimate favorite!
1 1/2 lbs italian sausage, browned
half a box of mostaccoli noodles cooked and drained
1 jar of spaghetti sauce  
mix it all up, and pour in a 13x9 pan, sprinkle some mozarella cheese on top, and bake until cheese is melted.

Pancake "Base"- I have added blueberries, choc chips, etc. but they're good plain also! nice and fluffy!
1 1/2 cups flour
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbps. white sugar
1 1/2 cups milk
1 egg
3 tbsp melted butter
1 tsp cinnamon

Graham Cracker Blondies add a handful of mini marshmallows and they taste like smores :)
2 sticks melted butter
2 cups brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
a pinch of salt
2 cups of flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup crushed grahm cracker crumbs.

mix up, grease a 13x9 pan, pour in and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes

a really good marinade for chicken
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tsp lime juice
1/4 tsp each cayenne and curry (pretty sure i left out the cayenne for the kids last time!?)
3 minced garlic cloves
1 tbsp fresh grated ginger


Home made "hot pockets"- 
CRUST:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 tsp minced parsley
3 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, chilled and cut into cubes
1/3 cup cold water
combine flour, cheese, parsley, sugar, and salt. cut in butter with a fork or pastry blender. add water one tsp at a time, stirring gently after each addition, use just enough water for dough to form a ball that can be kneaded. roll dough into a 5 inch circle. this recipe should make enough for 4-6 pockets, depending on how big you make them. 
FILLING:
stone-ground mustard
1/3 lb smoked ham, diced
1/3 cup shredded granny smith apple
1/3 cup shredded cheddar cheese 
1/4 cup diced green onions
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 egg, beaten

Combine ham, apple, cheese, onion, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Spread each pastry round with 1 tsp mustard and then divide filling into equal portions on half of the pastry round within 1/4 inch from the edge. brush edges with beaten egg, then fold over and align edges evenly to make a "pocket", use a fork to crimp edges and seal. Bake at 325  until pies are golden brown. Then i usually wrap them individually in foil and freeze, and reheat them in the microwave.

I havent tried yet, but i think it would be really good to put chicken potpie filling in these also?

Incredible Hulk Macaroni
ha! we have discovered that if you add a few drops of food coloring to any pasta while it's boiling (I always do it while it's boiling so the food coloring doesnt make it taste wierd) you can have a rainbow of colored noodles. Purple spaghetti is also another favorite :)


happy cooking :)

Gomes on a Mission

That's GOMEs, not Gomez ha! A lovely nickname given to me by Adam once upon a time, and it sortof stuck. I could never think what to call him exactly, but right now when he calls my cellphone it says "Castle".

Fall is without a doubt my favorite time of year! The weather is perfect, not too hot not too cold. I love shuffling through the leaves with the kids, I even love raking them. We had the absolute most amazing time last weekend taking a late-season camping trip to Door County. (Mabel's 2nd camping trip and she is only five months old LOL.)The kids loved riding the ferry over to Washington Island, and we had tons of fun at the Apple Cider Festival. I think that is about the nicest weather we are going to see for awhile, so I'm glad we took advantage of it! 
Lately I've come across a lot of creative ideas on what I like to call my list of "mom blogs"- really, I am just thrilled with the ideas you can get just by feeding off of other people. I want to do them all! I want to reorganize our whole life, and I don't just mean literally (but the house can use it as well, oh....you can't even imagine! I should seriously take before and after pictures if this big hairy plan works) I want to reorganize our finances, our schedules, our kids way of thinking and doing certain things, OUR way of doing certain things. And really, I'm not trying to say there's anything "wrong" with us. (There probably is tons :), it might have something to do with the fact that I am about to hit that dreaded birthday in a few months, (Oh sheesh is sad that I remember when Uncle Jesse turned 30 on Full house and I thought that was really old?!)  or maybe that we just celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary, and since we've been muddling along this way for 10 years, I think its about time to do some things differently.
Or it just might be that for the last 3 months especially, I feel like I have been running around like the chicken who's still squawking after his head was cut off. It's so depressing when you end up spending three hours cleaning the kitchen and then by that time someone wants lunch, then by 2 o clock you have to think of whats for dinner, then by that time there's muddy footprints on the clean floor and dirty clothes in the bathroom. I always start thinking by two o clock with dinner because adam is sooooo picky. You can not ask him what he wants to eat, you have to tell him his "options", and you have to have more than one because inevitably he is not going to like one of them. This is the same when we try to go out to a restaurant. I am not picky. Take me somewhere with something chicken on the menu and I'm fine.
            I've been doing a lot of reading on the FLYlady website also, and I definitely think I am going to start by making smaller goals at a time. I used to use an organizer all the time and I realized this week I havent written in it in two months. We have a wipe-off calendar on the side of the fridge that still has dates written in it from August. (Seriously, I wasnt kidding when I said I don't stop running. It's like being on a treadmill with a baby on your hip and three kids trying to ride piggy back while you carry a laundry basket.) The first two months of school I would take Alli with me to run "errands" and I would end up spending hours with her in and out of the car seat, and then I realized....she wasn't taking naps when we DID stay home!

Some things I am adding to my list to start with: (baby steps, right?)

limit the "running around" to 2 hours a day, home by 12:30 for Alli to take a decent nap in her crib

try using the sticky note system to remind the kids to do things and pick things up instead of a)getting exasperated, picking up after them myself, and yelling at them or threating the goodwill pile.

squeak out an hour a day for my "creative" stuff. I seriously miss my writing :(

put a notebook back in my purse so I can keep track of FOBs (flash of brilliance ha.), and TSFs (thrift store finds.) and all the stuff I need and dont need. write down my daily goals and check them off.

check off the last few things for winter before the "clothes" goal. 

stop drinking mountain dew. totally.

figure out what to do about Adam's closet. (Theres prolly a door to Narnia in there behind all his clothes, i dont thinl Ive ever seen the back)

A HUGE GOAL:
I want to go a year without buying my kids any clothes. This might seem crazy, but I think I can make it at least 8 months, saying 8 months because I know Holly is absolutely going to need summer clothes next spring. There's a few things I still need to get them for this winter (2 pairs of 6/7 snowpants, and eric and holly need boots.) but their closets are seriously overflowing, somehow I dont know how we even ended up with all this stuff, even Alli has enough clothes to last her until she is 4 years old. Okay....I do know how we ended up with all of it, I'm a total rummage sale Nazi! I went to one rummage sake this summer where a lady sold me all her leftover baby clothes for 10.00 and seriously the pile was 3 feet high, no exaggeration. The problem lies therein that the whole point of rummage sales is to save money, and when I go to one where t-shirts are 25cents, and I get 8 of them because damn who can resist a 25cent tshirt, right?  Well Eric already has 40 million tshirts in his drawer and he doesnt really need 8 more. And Jake is another clothes case althogether because he will NOT wear anything he knows was Erics, he would be happy with wearing the same 5 shirts over and over again.  We need to separate the "need" and the want, and I need to stay away from the kids clothing racks. (Yessss even when Once Upon a Child has that famous 1.00 clearance sale. I might shed a tear...)

By the way I have to figure out how to do all this without Adam actually "knowing" that Im trying to change stuff, because the other day I tried to tell him we need to do some things differently, and his grouchy, old man response was "bleepetybleep that bleep I'm not gonna change anything I do, there's nothing wrong with ME, it's the rest of you (me and the kids I think he meant) that are dysfunctional." Denial aint just a river in Egypt...

So hold me accountable, please. Gomes is on a mission.


  

Love, laughter, and cleaner bathrooms?

Finally I can start blogging again! I'm not going to try and recap the last 3 months because it would take forever. We had a good summer, had at least one decent camping trip in there and a bunch of other fun stuff, and now the kids are back in school. Sans a few homework issues already, they're all doing pretty good.

Today is our 10 year wedding anniversary. It would be nice if my husband was actually here....but he's on another layover job. Hard to believe it's been 10 years. 10 years since high school and college avenue and the big orange truck and the orange "general lee" haha. 10 years since Eric rode down the aisle in that little wagon and his little suit. It's crazy that all our friends are just starting to getting married NOW and we already have 10 years in. In a way it seems like forever, and then again every year is going by faster and faster. I can't say I'm happy with every choice that we've made, but I think things always get a little better than they were before. (two steps forward, one step back?) And the people who know us best know we're both stubborn, and both tough as nails. Somehow we always figure it out...
 I got a really nice compliment from an older lady in the Piggly Wiggly last night when the kids were helping me look for canned saurkraut and busily reading labels. (yukkkk lol) She told me I had a really nice family and she said when we were walking down the aisle we looked like a "unit" haha! Yes we are quite the unit........
       I think i've been reading too many coupon/lifestyle blogs lately, or else I'm just getting old because I feel the need to reorganize everything. Not just our house but our life in general. I feel like we've spent 10 years "this way", and not that there's mostly anything wrong with the way we are, but there's a lot of stuff that gets tossed by the wayside to worry about other things. And in our house it LITERALLY gets tossed, by the front door, in the garage, in the backyard. I live with 3 mini slobs and a tall skinny one. Last week I realized the kids think every week when I get my unemployment check from getting laid off of work, they think IM GETTING PAID TO CLEAN THE HOUSE! so I've decided to make a plan, and start tiny, and see where I can get us in a year from now. It could be interesting.....

Son of a beach!

Ah yes now I remember all the things I dislike about being here with the kids myself all week.

A)adult conversation, even adult arguments lol

B) cooking and eating "grownup" food. I swear I fully intend to teach these kids to eat fish and shrimp by the end of the summer. You can't be a son or daughter of Adam Geurden and not eat fish.

C)worry about dumb tiny things like cutting the lawn, (thank you newfound lawn-mowing 10 yr old son), making sure the garage is closed at night, making sure the ac bucket doesn't overflow on the damn floor, etc. and no one else to catch that stuff if I miss it. (eric prolly would though lol)

D) worrying about other things silently because I don't want to make HIM worry................feeling guilty really because why should I be miserable- he is the one gone from his family 4-5 days at a time.  I guess we got spoiled having him around the last 2 months....

We really did have a nice couple days, on thursday went to visit some friends in Oshkosh so we did the annual "riding of the mini train" for the year at the park, went on a nice long stroll through the woods and came home tired enough to all sleep in til 10 the next morning :) saturday we went to stay at my parents for the night, I went out with a friend to see a movie for a few hours, and then my parents got up with the baby so I got to sleep for 6 1/2 hours STRAIGHT?! wow that was amazing, and greatly appreciated. I haven't gotten to sleep that long at a time I think in at least four months.  The kids really had a blast running around outside with my brother. Holly came home and told the neighbors she went on a go kart that went 100 mph lol. they climbed trees and ran through the mud and eric was "working" on something in the shop with his uncle and came in full of grease, they were in dirt heaven :) We were home for five minutes and there came that goddamn creepy ice cream man. I was really proud of  holly and jake though, they didn't even ask, didn't throw a hissy fit. Just went in and got themselves some fudge pops out of the freezer :)
       Today after spending the morning hauling rummage sale junk, we went to the beach for the first time this year and the kids  had a blast running around with their friends, we came home and cooked a nice supper (eric had a shitfit because I made asian bbq chicken and used boneless thighs- he said they were slimy. really?! ) went for a walk before dark and then off they went to bed which means I should do some excersizing but yeah the hard part seems to be by the time everyone is asleep and I sit down for five minutes I'm too tired to even move, nevertheless get some situps in before Alli wakes up again at 11ish.... and also I'm now one of those lucky people with back problems result of that epidural- blessing and a curse, right?! (I still wouldn't have gone without it though!)
        On a humorous note, I' ve been trying to drill in the fact to the kids that if your laundry doesnt hit the chute or the pile in front of the washer, you're going to be doing your own wash, too bad so sad,right?  Welll.... I guess Jake took matters into his own hands, cuz he went over to gramma's house not wearing any underwear LOL. guess he couldn't find any when he got dressed in the morning so he went commando. How about putting the ones on the floor in the wash, kid?! Sigh. I will keep trying.
  

tropical heat wave.....

What a hot and muggy day. We all complain about winter, wait for spring, and then hide in the air conditioning as soon as summer hits:) So glad my kids love to be outside! They actually all threw hissy fits last night because we made them come in the house at 7 when we were leaving to go out. In the summer they will be outside from morning til 9 or 10 at night, or whenever darkness falls. I love that they are so creative and resourceful. Eric collected scrap metal the other day and turned it in for 65.00. Instead of some dumb toy, he bought himself a nice little garden barrel fountain :)  He seems so grown up all of a sudden, riding his bike around town, friends calling on the phone, now I made him a facebook account and email so he can talk to our family and his friends, he loves that. And Adam let him start mowing the lawn this week (which he's being watched of course.) well he's been pretty careful, but today a rock flew out and cracked adam's truck windshield.  Couldn't be made cuz you could tell he felt bad, but damn that truck was totally smashed last year when Adam hit the deer, so we had to have it rebuilt and it's only got liability now. That's going to be ouchie on the wallet :(
         I also love that they are already sleeping in every day on summer vacation (usually it takes until about July!) and that they are  independent. They can get up, make their own breakfast, pick out their own clothes, etc while I'm taking care of the baby. I must be doing something right! 
        Today Holly, Alli, and I had a "girls afternoon" while the boys went with dad to drop off the scrap metal. It was really fun, we went to Babies R Us and "accessorized" Alli with new hats, shoes, and hairbands and then had fun dressing her up when we got home and taking pictures. Holly bought herself some new sandals with the 2.00 she got for cleaning her room. 
        We have so many things planned for this weekend, I can't wait to take them to the beach for the first time this year, and  a new waterpark we haven't been to also. I bought Alli her first swimming suit, it is so freakin cute! And we are also going to Menominee Park to ride the little train cuz we always do that at least once in the summer.  Next week we are doing some things at the nature center, and who knows what else. I feel like I hafta keep them really busy, especially for these first couple weeks, cuz thursday dad goes back to work.It's been a really long time since we had him around so much, and it's going to be hard to get used to him not being here all the time again.
          Last night we had a "date night" for the first time in a long time. Really it was just a few drinks and bar food but it was soooo unbelievably nice to get out for once. I haven't really gone anywhere without the baby except that one wedding since she was born. I really needed the "recharging" time and adult conversation (okay yah the booze did not hurt either!) and I am so grateful for my friend who came at the last minute to stay with the kids (even though Holly was a pain in the ass.). I like to think of myself somewhere in the middle- I know there are moms who have kids that are 4-5 years old and they will say "I've never left my kid for more than 2 hours, they've never even stayed overnight anywhere", and on the other hand, there's moms who it seems like are dumping their kids off all weekend every single weekend to hang out with friends and get plastered. I don't know how you find that middle sometimes- I always leave feeling guilty- like guilty that I inconvenienced someone else by having to take care of them (cuz it's MY job), even though I take THEM to do fun stuff all the time.  If I get one night a month to myself, I could be happy with that.  Something to work on....

Summer you have arrived!

Gosh I have not posted in awhile- stuff gets busy and time gets away from you....Suddenly Alli is a month old already, i want her to stop growing so fast! She is a genuine eating puking pooping machine, loves to sit in the stroller in the backyard and listen to all the sounds around her. She is really attentive to the birds chirping :) She always wakes up in time for Letterman and sleeps til the end of Craig Ferguson. And yesterday I bought her her first swimming suit :)
       Two of the kids are done with school since the middle of last week already, poor Jake he's still got a few days left. (Yeah try reasoning that one with him- brother and sister get to stay home but you gotta go lol) . I was a little melancholy to watch them walk down their sidewalks for the last time- it was my goal especially for eric to keep him in his school with his friends and the people he knew for as long as possible no matter where we moved (we have moved too many times in the last couple years. staying put for awhile!) so i have done lots of kid-hauling. but i think it was worth it. Some of my best friends are people that i went to school with as far back as kindergarten. I always find myself looking at the little friends the kids have now and wondering who they're still going to be friends with 20 years from now.  Having tons of friends was never as important to me as having a few good ones who you knew would be there. And the good ones are still around :)
      I took them all to the zoo in GB last weekend- kindof the first all day "outing" with Alli, and it went much smoother than I expected. I found these formula "to go" packs at Target, and they are a LIFESAVER. Why did they not have these when I had 3 other babies?  Just bring the bottles with water and dump and shake- so unbelievably much easier than worrying about keeping bottles cold, then worrying about warming them up again wherever you are...Another thing that's a lifesaver, that I cannot say thanks enough, all the people who sent their formula coupons and free cans our way. Anyone having a baby I would 100 percent recommend getting on the Similac and Enfamil mailing lists, cuz the first thing Similac does is sent you a free giant sized can, which I looked at the price is 21.00 at Target, and 50.00 in coupons. I have made 2 Target formula runs so far and bought over 65.00 worth of formula each time and I paid about 15.00 total.
      We have also been out on the rummage sale circuit, made a trip to B-town to see family, made a few trips to the park (yikes we are terrible kite flyers. have to work on that!) and Alli "participated" in a 5k walk haha. (Okay, she was pushed lol. lots of people had cute dogs but we had the cutest baby!)  We have been busy.  i made a "bored box" for the kids so I can pull it out this summer and let them pick some fun things to do  (there's a regular side and a rainy day side) because  I feel kindof bad- I didnt sign them up for ANY summer activities, all the registration deadlines for the rec department were the week before and after Alli was born, and I totally forgot, and now there is a stupid 20.00 late fee for everything, so i guess we will be finding lots of alternative activities...
       For myself I am trying to implement a new "goal plan" this summer and break it down into one week increments. It seems like it would be easier that way instead of saying "I'm gonna do etc etc etc" all this stuff listed and getting overwhelmed. I've been following this blog lately at moneysavingmom.com and I really like her blog because it isnt just about coupons, she has really good articles about do-it-yourself projects, getting good travel deals, and one of my favorites is the "we paid in cash" one. (although really, I think the lady who wrote about paying cash for a crockpot looked kindof silly next to the one who paid cash for a new suburban LOL). It gives you a lot of neat ideas of stuff to try in your own life and household.

My goals for this week are: 

One do it yourself kitchen/cooking  project that I haven't tried.

reorganize the truck. (first aid kit, repack emergency back with extra clothes, remove sleeping bags still there for winter emergencies lol.) 

30 minutes of some form of excersize every day.    

It's a start :)  Looking forward to a great summer!

Hmm I put Alli in the Snugli my wonderful friend has borrowed to me (this thing is great- WHY did I not have one with my three other kids?~) so I could get some stuff done, and now she is sleeping like a little angel but I cant figure out how to get her out without waking her up. Good time for a blog update :)
        The other night I took the kids to Fazolis for the Tuesday night kids night- we havent done that in forever. I sat at the table and watched as they went over and did their coloring projects, and gosh they all seemed so BIG suddenly. We used to do the kids night every week without fail when Eric was little. Back then it was just him and me, bombing around town in the little black s-10 truck, and now all of a sudden there are four of them and one of me....Well it seems to be working so far. I definitely got off track with keeping after them getting stuff done, with some issues of their behavior, etc, for the last month or two of being pregnant, and it's taking awhile to get everything in order again, but I think I'm getting there. The other day Holly and Jake were not listening about doing something and I said "watch it, I can move a lot faster now that I'm not pregnant" haha.
          It's been an interesting week:
          Jake apparently decided he did not want a mohawk anymore, so he tried to cut it off. Right down to the scalp, too. Adam buzzed off the rest of his hair and tried to make it look normal, but it's gonna be awhile before he doesn't have white spots in the front of his hair....Damn, it's amazing how
         a) no one can ever find a scissors (and we bought a TEN PACK 2 months ago and they're all MIA) but a kid who wants to cut their own hair always manages to scrape one up.  and
         b) you never notice your kid cut their hair until you find the hair, even though they did it like 8 hours ago. "Oh yeah he DOES have a bald spot"....
         For the record, I did cut brian's hair once when we were little. I was smart enough not to cut my own, and I was smart enough to make him lay on a little toy ironing board with a paper bag underneath while I sheared it off :)
         Ah yes and then last night Eric caught Jake peeing downstairs on a pile of clean clothes in his closet?! I was sooooo mad that tonight when they came in the house Jake had to "do" his own laundry.  He lost his good kid status for a few days!
        Holly has been sooooo out of sorts all week, if she was not only almost 7  I would swear she had PMS. I think it's just time for school to be done and summer to start, and I think she's kindof bummed cuz she knows she's not going to see any of her 5k friends in school next year, but holy man, what a little grouch. Two mornings Adam took the kids to school and he said she refused to get out of the truck. Thats really not like her, she usually loves school and they are doing lots of fun end of the year stuff so Im not sure what her problem is.
        I painted a wall in the living room. Yup, a whole wall. And I got it done before I gave up, I hung stuff on it, and it looks GOOD.  Adam came home and i was sitting with Alli in the chair admiring my one blue wall. Literally watching paint dry haha. Im not much of a decorator, and I HATE painting, but it was a tiny project and it ended good....until I picked up the drop cloth and paint had soaked through onto the carpet. Sigh. Shampooing carpets between "baby sleeps" at 10 pm.
       We switched Alli totally over to formula this week, which I was kindof dissapointed in myself for giving up the nursing thing, but it just doesn't work for me, I am on the go way too much. Kudos to all those moms who do it for months and months at a time, it's rewarding but a lot of work! We gave it a good try for 3 weeks, which was longer than I made it with any of the other kids. As much as I loved spending those entire afternoons sitting in the chair with her, (she was turning into a "snacker"  lol. 10 minutes, go to sleep, wake up for 10 more minutes, sleep some more haha. feeding her was taking me forever.) things get out of hand in the rest of the house when Im not there to lay the smack down on the other three, and also
I guess it would be different if I was a stay at home mom who actually stayed home most of the day. Good thing she is a good little traveler cuz she gets stuck running errands with me most afternoons while the kids are in school. The sucky part is that she kindof reverted to waking up more at night now, where before she was sleeping 4-5 hours at a time, now it's awake every 2 1/2 hours on the nose it seems like. Regarding buying formula: OMG expensive! Thank god for all the people who passed their freebie sample cans and formula coupons over this way!   
       Not sure about the plans for the big memorial wkend, we're supposed to go camping but it's looking like rain, and I promised the kids a trip to the zoo that was already delayed by bad weather once.  (Aww Mabels first trip to the zoo! Sunday we will be heading to B-town for a bridal shower, and the neighbors always have a big party on memorial monday. fun but busy.....

It's the End of the World as we know it.....

Do you let your kid buy stuff from the ice cream man when he drives by with his tinkly noisy little annoying truck? (always right before dinner too, real nice.) because I don't. I do not care if my kids hate me for their entire lives. It gives me the creeps. Maybe I just watch too many cop shows but the ice cream man always ends up being a)the guy who is casing your house to rob it or b) the sex offender who snatches up the kid drives off and either one is never seen again. Nope. Sorry.  I'd rather run to Pick n Save and let them pick out whatever ice cream treat they want that way.
             It was a gorgeous day  today! We finally got our garden planted- now the tricky part is keeping our kids and the neighbor kids out of it. I cannot wait to make our own crunchy dill pickles again, and the kids LOVE eating peapods and green beans with ranch dip. We planted a lot more tomatoes this year, I really want to try making more of my own tomato sauce, salsa, etc. and we should have the first batch of rhubarb for making raspberry-rhubarb jam in the next few weeks. The kids have been waiting all week for it to get warm enough to plant, so they were excited to help. Holly planted sunflowers in her own pot. The boys helped dad with the vegetable seeds, and then Eric helped me plant some flowers and Alli's rosebush, so that kept us busy all afternoon, then we had a nice little brat cookout and a fire for awhile, relaxed a little in the back yard. (Well, it was relaxing until that ice cream man incident.grrr..) We put Alli in the stroller and parked her on the deck so she could get her nap in the fresh air, it was so cute I swear she was laying there listening to the birds chirping. It's like she has superhearing, she is so aware of everything. And when she wakes up she stretches her arms and legs out perfectly straight and makes little grunting noises. Oh yeah, and she has also decided her favorite "awake" time of the day...is at 4 AM!? Really. My wonderful baby who sleeps so great also loves to wake up at 4 am and lay on the bed and stare at me for 2 hours.
            Adam and I hit up some rummage sales while the kids were in school this afternoon, didn't find much but we found a few misc. things and a bunch of clothes for the kids. I am trying to plan ahead that I want get enough stuff to "clothe" all of them through next winter- yikes.  I cannot believe they only have about 2 weeks of school left. Think Eric and Holly are feeling kindof left out because all the kids in both of their classes are having visits to their "new" schools next year, and since they are not going to KASD schools next year, it doesn't really apply to them.  I know Holly will love going to school with all her cousins and Daisy friends, and Eric does know a lot of kids already here, but it's kind of sad to be saying goodbye to all their Kaukauna friends and teachers. Eric has been in kaukauna schools since he was in 4K. I have been making that "drive" back and forth across town one direction or another several times a day for 6 years. Next year they will only be about 1/2 a mile from their schools. Can't complain about that, but it'll be sad to park by that water tower for the last time!              
           I got my first Big Fat Check for shopping on Ebates yesterday. Whoo-hoo lol. It was 11.00.  oh well money is money! In case you don't know what ebates is, go to http://www.ebates.com/. You start at ebates and go shopping at other sites through there, and then they give you money back on your purchases. You get your money a few times a year in the form of a Big Fat Check (haha that's what they call it!) It's starting to be kindof a game with the kids - "oooo let's see what mom got free in the mail today". Yesterday we got a little cloth drawstring back for counting change from Coinstar. (those big green machines in walmart) oh yeah and some neato red rubber rainboots I ordered Jake for super cheap, and more free laundry soap samples... (those are awesome to save for when you oops run out of soap and dont wanna run to store 10 o clock at night to get some :) Haven't done much "deal-shopping" otherwise,  seems like all the grocery sales have been kind of "dudd-ish" for the last 2 weeks, and I just cannot make myself do a huge grocery shop when things are not on sale! Good thing tomorrow is saturday...taking 4 kids with me on double coupon day should just be loads of fun.
           Ah yes and tomorrow is the big day that's supposed to be the end of the world lol. Oh boy. well I'm sure we will all still be here in 48 hours so see you either on sunday morning or at the Pearly Gates :p

Just some thoughts...

Got my mother's day card from Jake a few days late since it was left in his backpack. I love love love those "fill in the blank" cards.  It read something like this: My mom likes to eat candy and sierra mist. My mom's eyes are blue (haha they're brown) My mom's favorite show is Cast Out (I think he meant Castle lol.) My Mom likes to cook french toast. (I don't think I have ever made french toast) My mom is 14 years old. Really?!
         It was a busy week trying to get into the swing of some kind of "normal" again. Honestly the baby is not even the one who is all the work. (I swear easiest newborn baby EVER.) It is the other three. And what is with all the teachers, etc, trying to cram As Much As Possible into the last month of school?! We are overrun with school projects, after school activities, field trips and birthday snacks (since all three have summer birthdays- yup you guessed it, three half birthday snacks coming up. Well I will be cheating and buying something premade this year, sorry kids.)
       Today to top it all off, the bad thing Adam and I sortof guessed was coming happened. Bill the Bluegill finally kicked the bucket. Poor fish. He hadn't been looking too good lately. He was five years old, pretty good for a fish that came home all the way from Winneconne in a plastic sand pail. (I don't know how he ever made it. I thought for sure that day by the time I got home he would have hopped out and been laying in the trunk baking in the sun.) He was about 3 inches long the day we brought him home and today when Adam took him out of the tank to "preserve" him (we're going to hang him on the wall) he's got to be pretty darn close to 10 inches? Eric was hysterically upset, but he might have been overdoing it a little just so he could go to grammas house....then again, he pretty much reacted the same way when the guinea pig died. Sucks, but its a part of life I guess.
         Alli has been all over with us this week, seriously it's almost too easy. I hope she doesn't make it up to us by putting us through hell when she is teething. As long as she eats before we start our running around, she is happy being hauled around for a  good couple hours. She only cries when she is hungry or when you change her clothes, or maybe when she needs a little snuggly time, and then she will lay down on your chest and sleep forever- what a sweetie. I already want her to stay this little forever. One day this week I sat in the recliner with her on me all afternoon just because I could. The other kids were gone, no one there to bug us, no place to go. Figured I better enjoy the peace and quiet now, cuz the kids only have about 3 weeks of school left and then no more peace and quiet for 3 months. She is such a contrast to Holly- who was an extremely demanding baby. Holly needed to be held all the time, she was soooo fussy, even as a toddler she was demanding. Anyone in the family can tell you how she used to point when she wanted something and say "BUH!" I can remember the nurses bringing holly down from the nursery in the hospital and I could hear her from all the way down the hall. "Yep, that one is mine. The loud one"...
         Adam really wanted me to go see some band tonight with him but I am not ready to leave her yet. It might be because of the whole traumatic birth thing, but I have the slight overprotective thing going on in tandem with the "guilty mom" complex about how much the other kids have gotten shuffled around in the last couple weeks. I never like asking anyone to watch them more than once a week, and none of them have really ever had a babysitter out of the family. Yeah, it would be nice to have more help, it would be nice to get out more but they're MY kids. If I really wanted to spend every single weekend sitting in bars I prolly wouldnt have had them!
        This weekend is Kaukauna city-wide rummage sales, we will be hitting those bright and early, and sunday is holly's dance recital. We have a garden to plant and a lawn to mow (well that would be easier if we had a stinkin lawnmower) and three kids who need to clean their rooms. And really all I wanna do is leave it all and pile the kids in the 'Verban and drive away somewhere nice and sunshiney and next a lake. Whitefish Dunes, anyone? Cant wait for summer....

In Celebration of Mother's Day....

Things I love about my kids/being a mom:

the sense of accomplishment that comes from multi-tasking Yeah, you can really blog, and eat  your dinner and yell at your other kids and do it with a baby on your boob at the same time.

the awesomest things ever that come home made especially for me in their backpacks. My favorites so far: Erics fill in the blank book he made in 4K that says "If I had a million dollars, I would buy my mom a bigger house". (haha, that was when we lived in our first house and holly had to sleep in the converted laundry room) and Holly's painted sand dollar and all the christmas ornaments with their faces on them.

That saying you have four kids sounds really impressive. Haha, when I took Holly with me to the doctor's office for Alli yesterday, we stopped at a rummage sale on the way home. "Oh, you have 2 girls", the lady said, "how cute".  And I said "yes, we left the boys at home today". 4 kids, she was impressed  and I was kindof proud of myself lol. Yeah, I can say I gave birth to four kids and survived! (Just for the record,  I don't think 4 is even a huge number. And so far, the baby has been way less work that the other three.)

I love that they are 4 totally different combinations of the two of us. I can look at Eric and pick out Adams restlessness when he wants to wander around the neighborhood on his bike, and sometimes when you tell him to do something and he gets this bullheaded attitude, I can tell exactly how he's thinking, it's like being in my own 10 year old head all over again thinking "Well, I'm gonna find a way to do that anyway".... Oooo and he's picky lol, definitely gets that from Adam. "Mom, I aint eatin that". Well kid,  if that's whats for dinner and I say you're eating it, you're cleaning your plate :p
I can look at Holly and she is so smart, she has my love of reading, loves like crazy to color and draw, and she is always willing to try new stuff, even if she is scared to do it at first.
Jake,  he is like a mini Adam clone. He can hear a freigh train coming from 5 miles away. He's been waiting all winter to get that green hornet boat out and go fishing. 99 percent of the time he is super good-natured, but when he gets stubborn, boy he is like a brick wall.
Mabel, well I don't know about her yet she's only a week old but she makes a pretty big stinky for such a little thing (haha, that's what she gets from adam) and I noticed yesterday she's got this tiny mark on her ear, it's such a little thing you wouldn't even notice, but she gets that from me :)

I love that even though it's crazy around here n rarely quiet, there is tons of comic relief moments every day
 Holly has been bringing home hilarious drawings for 5 months with a little bald baby named Alli colored on them, and I swear every day she would say "now there are going to be six people in our family".   Now she wants to go back and add brown hair to all her pics.

I love that Jake's teacher asked him if the new baby was here yet and he told her "Yes, her name is Mabel".  I don't think the teacher was very impressed at our name choice.

I love that Eric likes to borrow grandpa's cellphone when he goes over to their house, and he will call ten times from wherever he is, just to make calls. "Hey Mom, I'm riding my bike through the park. Do you want me to stop at the gas station and buy you a pack of gum for later?" because he talks like he's 45 years old.

That you can say "No" whenever you want to, even if it's just because you feel like it. HAHA, self-explanatory right? lol

I love it when you make something for dinner and they say "Mom, you're the best cook ever", whether it's lasagna or cheeseburger macaroni.

I love that they remember EVERYTHING. I am not kidding. My kids have the memory of elephants. Their favorite one by far "Hey Mom remember when the goat ate Jake's paper bag?"  I hope they remember it all when they are older.

I love that even when they "hate" you, they still love you :)  At least when they're little. In five years we are going to have one kid on the verge of driving, one girl on the verge of teenage pms years, one on the way to middle school, and one on the way to 4k. could get interesting around here....

Happy Mother's Day!

Mabel is here!

Well I didnt abandon my blog, but I've been a little busy.....
Monday night we had a baby girl named Allissa Rose. As she lays next to me here on the bed trying to eat her hands and watching me through her sleepy little eyes, I seriously do not know how she even fit in my belly, or how the heck i got her out.
  She's not little, that's for darn sure! 9 lbs 8 oz, 21 inches. 9 1/2 hours of labor which was really quite easy and tolerable until the end when she gave us what shall forever be known as The Most Frightening Ten Minutes of Our Lives.  Without going into graphic details, I will just say that I am so grateful that I had a doctor with a cool head and clear, quick, thinking. Alli and I both came out of it much, much better than we really should have. There is not much more scary than watching your new baby laying on the table not moving her arms. She had to have her shoulders x-rayed to check for a broken collar bone (negative-thank god~), and she had a lot of scratches and bruises, but even a couple days later she is doing much better and I am sllloooowly getting there. (so much for good hospital pictures though, sheesh I saw only a few I let adam take and I look like death.)  She is  a pretty good sleeper, sometimes 3-4 hours at a time, and nurses like a champ.
       The kids are having mixed reactions I think. Eric at the hospital he wasnt too interested, but tonight when he came in the house, he kindof touched her head and he said a couple times "She's cute, she's got a lot of hair". (I can see the wheels in his head turning, even though he doesn't say it. Call me a wimp,  but we never really had that "where do babies come from" conversation). Jake was pretty upset the first night he came up to the hospital, but I think it had more to do with seeing me in the hospital bed looking roughed up. Tonight he came into our room upstairs "where's Allissa?" and he stood next to her little bed watching her sleep for a long time. Holly of course, is ecstatic. She came into that hospital room with the biggest grin on her face you have ever seen. Right away today after school she asked to hold her and she said "Now I won't have to play with boys anymore". (Well it's gonna be awhile til Alli can play lol. And by that time Holly will prolly WANT to play with boys-yikes!)
       Adam did the superawesomest job ever this afternoon corralling the kids and cleaning up the house and making supper, getting them all ready for bed etc so I could rest.  He looked soooo tired by about 8:30, I bet he will be ready to go back to work in a week lol. (I'm pretty sure he realizes now how absolutely horribly I felt trying to do all that the last 2-3 weeks when I could hardly move.) I think in a week or two when we get some new routines down, we'll be fine. It was kindof a wierd feeling to have them all home. Like hello, we have FOUR kids?!  (And by the way, that'll do folks. Even dr agreed four is a good number and no more are recommended.) It's kindof a bittersweet feeling looking at her and knowing for sure this is the last time we will ever have these "new baby" moments,  I cant wait for all the firsts that the next few weeks will bring!.....

oh boy....

Well we had a false alarm the other night...sortof. I hate that they call it "false" labor, because when you are having contractions every 3-5 minutes for hours at a time, it's definitely real- really hurts and really sucks! They sent us home from the hospital about 3 am, still with contractions 5 minutes apart and in definite pain. Adam was pissed that they sent me home, but the sucky part was as bad as the contx were, it became apparent after a little while that no Mabel was coming out that night...
         We ended up spending almost 3 hours in the doctor's office the next day while they did a stress test, checked the amnio fluid levels, etc, to make sure everything was okay.  The good thing that came out of it was that I got to have an extra ultrasound-yay! I've never had one so close to the end before, and it was amazing- what a great sneak peak! She looks a lot like Holly's newborn baby pictures, and her little fist was in front of her face. We kept waiting for her to give us the finger-haha she will fit right in with the other three who just learned that whole naughty finger business lol. Poor thing her head is so far down now it was squashed right in there :p The not-so-good thing is that according to this u/s, which I know can be off by a lot either way, this little girl is a whopping 9 POUNDS already. The tech did point out "look at her little chub rolls, she has a big belly". Yikes. Double yikes. That was last week at only 37.5 weeks.  Jake had a huge belly when he was born, and he was 8 lbs 15 oz. We have another doctor's appt this week on thursday, could be an interesting one. I am scheduled to be induced on May 2nd if she doesn't come out on her own before that.  And here this entire time I thought she was going to be the smallest one. My guess is she will not come out much over 9 lbs, even with the u/s because I have never measured even two weeks ahead. 9 lbs I can handle. 10-11 lbs um yeah....I'll take the c-section if they're handing them out! (Watch they are prolly TOTALLY wrong and she'll come out 7 lbs. can tiny babies have big bellies?!) I got a few outfits at Old Navy for her this morning and now I find myself skipping right over the newborn clothes and going to 3 months, Holly might be using all those newborn diapers for her dolls...
         Those two days were so exhausting, the kids were gone, I felt soooo bad for sending them away 2 nights in a row but I really needed the down time. (Overdoing it much? That was what caused the whole false alarm I think. way too much stress and trying to corral kids, deal with adam's changing job hours, etc.)  I think we pretty much stayed in bed watching tv the entire first day, and then he drove me around town so I could get a few easter errands done, we had a nice lunch at Red Lobster, got some movies, and back to bed....I know Adam was just as exhausted, he drove home from work that night to take me to the hospital, so hadn't gotten any sleep either, smacked the side of his face with a door (I didn't punch him, I swear!) drove home like 85 mph even though I told him to not be a maniac. It was just a really long couple days. After the kids left on thursday and I went up to my room to lay down, Jake had left his build-a-bear on my pillow on my side of the bed for me to sleep with. Awww, talk about a tear-jerker! 
        Easter tomorrow. The kids already had 2 easter egg hunts in the backyard this afternoon. Empty eggs with nothing in them lol. They will do it ten times over and over, running around the yard seeing who can get the most eggs. In the morning they will have to search high and low for their easter baskets (hey that bunny isn't gonna make it easy!) Jake thinks that the easter bunny "borrows" Santas cameras to spy on them through the windows :p In the afternoon tomorrow gramma will have a big easter egg hunt at her house for all the great grandkids. She really goes all out, all the eggs have a number on them, and then you get to match up your numbers for a prize when all the eggs are collected. The problem this year is that she always has this "golden egg" worth 5.00 and alllllll of the kids have been plotting for weeks who is going to find that golden egg. last year holly found it, well cousin was pissed when he found out someone gave her a hint, but I think if I remember last year the other kids had a lot more eggs than she did.  I hope it doesn't turn into a bloodbath lol. I tried to convince all three of them they should let the 2 yr old cousin find it, but they're not having any of that.
      The "kid that doesn't go home" has also been back this week. Sigh. I guess none of that police reporting the other night did any damn good.  He was here today again from 12:30 til 8 o clock and no one even came looking for him, like usual. I think he's scared of me now.  It really still bugs me the way that cop was like asking him "Are you being respectful? Do you listen when you're over here?"  The kid never misbehaves, that isn't the problem. The problem is that I AM NOT HIS PARENT!? I am not his babysitter, I am not responsible for him in any way.  But I do feel sorry for him, like everyone else in the neighborhood does.  I decided if that "I'm locked out, I can't go home" stuff happens again, I am just going to take him to the police station and let them deal with his mother that way.....
        

What would YOU do?

Wow. I don't know whether to be super angry or just really really sad. We had a situation over here tonight with "the neighbor kid who never goes home", who I have mentioned on here a few times. I will just call him Kid because I don't want to say his name. 
        Well I had to drag all the kids out in the snowstorm because Holly had a girlscout Easter party and as much as I tried to convince her it was "probably" cancelled, she looked so dissapointed, that I finally gave in and said we would go see if it was still on, so we were gone for about an hour, and as we were leaving, I though I saw the kid coming down the sidewalk on his bike, but we were driving away. Okay, so maybe he'll go back home, right? 
        When we got back home, apparently the kid, who is 10, was locked out of his house, so he went over to OUR neighbor's house and stayed there.  Locked out of his house. In a snowstorm. No coat on, forget hat and mittens. No socks on. riding his bike in a blizzard. giant holes in his pants. My SIL who lives next door to the kid and his mom called her at work and said "he's locked out, you need to come home". Well apparently the woman didn't give a crap because she said "oh he'll just hang around somewhere til I get back". So I took it upon myself to call the cops. 
            They send this doofus cop over who really apparently does not give a crap either, takes the kids "story", doesn't care what I have to say, and tells me to keep the kid there til his mom comes and get him. (this is not MY kid! I am not technically babysitting him!) Sooooo SIL who lives next door calls and tells me the mom got home at 5:15,  why is it 7 o clock and she hasn't come over to talk to me like the good officer said she would?  More phone calls proceed, in which I GET YELLED AT for sending the kid home, and the lovely cop tells me "that I'm not any better than his mother" for sending him home in a blizzard. At least I gave him a coat before I sent him back to where his mother was sitting on her ass on the couch.
             I am so appalled. This is the second time actually in my life that I have reported child abuse against someone (we won't get too far into the first time, but what do you do when you are 16 yrs old and the kid you babysit for, shows her the closet where her dad locks her in when she's naughty and the belt hanging on the key rack?) And this is the second time that NO ONE HAS DONE ANYTHING!?  This is more than a kid out in a snowstorm without a coat. This is a kid running around the neighborhood in the dark at 8 pm at night when he should be home eating supper, doing homework, and showering. this is a kid showing up on the doorstep at 6:45 am to see if Eric is up set, riding his bike to school when it is below zero out, eating 4-5 tacos at our house because no one ever makes him supper, showing up last sunday when it's thundering and lightning out 20 minutes before the tornado sirens go off.  I don't know his mother's name, I dont even have her phone number. If something happened to him when he was at my house, hell I don't even know exactly which apartment is theirs. He will come over on a saturday and be at our house from 8 am until 9pm if you let him and NOT ONCE will she come to check on him. You can bet your ass if my kid was gone for 13 hours I would have the freaking cops combing the neighborhood looking for him. You can bet your ass if there's snow on the ground, my kid isn't even getting out of the garage without a coat on.  And now I feel terrible because I can't let him come over anymore because he's not MY kid and he's not MY responsibility, and Im not going to let some stupid metro cop make me feel like he "should" be. I mean really, I have enough to worry about keeping track of my own three kids, nevertheless the gigantically preggo factor.
 You try to do the right thing, and you wonder if you shouldve just stayed out of it.....

Rain rain go away....

The longest saturday EVER........gosh, I think I would have rather been in the hospital giving birth.
Well it rained all day today so the kids were stuck in the house, and they are NOT kids who do well being stuck inside all day.  I might have mentioned they don't really watch tv (sometimes you just wish they WOULD plop in front of the tube for an hour lol), with the rain there were no friends to play with, they couldn't go out and ride bikes, etc. and our Wii is broken.
 I  tried to keep them busy- (I should mention Adam doesn't do well stuck in the house all day either haha! I envied him leaving for work tonight.) this morning we made our  own play-doh, which the kids thought was really great. I didn't really have any non-stain food coloring to color it with, so it came out this really funny pale peach color that looks alarmingly the color of raw chicken, but they thought it was the best thing ever. They sat at the counter and ran their hotwheels and cookie cutters, rolling pins, etc, through it for a good two hours, and currently it has been brought back out after dinner. 
There were at least three temper tantrums in that two hours, mostly from Eric when he didn't get his way. They helped me make lemon cupcakes (haha the ones that are supposed to make you go into labor! Holly had a really fun time grating the lemon peels and then squeezing out the juice) we played and solved a Scooby Doo Mystery on the computer (well we solved it because I looked up the walk-thru and we cheated lol. Eric worked on it for an hour yesterday and we could NOT find this old man's false teeth.)
Then they tried to make their own monopoly game, which would have been really fun, but for some reason "taking turns" writing places in the squares was REALLY hard. ( I'll give you one guess which kid decided "I'm just gonna write in two at a time so we can get done faster"....) It still came out cute. They put all these placed from town on it, like grandpa's shop and the library, Butch's Pizza, the railroad yard, etc.
A few more temper tantrums and a certain 9 yr old who was mad because he wanted to go to grandma's and didn't get his way.  I really hope the neighbors couldn't here them. Even when they were happy, the noise level in here just kept escalating to ridiculous levels.  It is definitely time for summer and nice weather.
In between all this, I was alternating between trying to get the house clean and taking a break every five minutes because my back is annoyingly sore. With them stuck in the house, you can imagine how that went. You go into a different room to clean and when you come back there's a giant mess where you just got done...talk about depressing! I was ready to throw my own temper tantrum. Definitely I am out of steam, and I think they are finally getting that mom really doesn't feel up to doing much.
 Jake must've told me he loves me 100 times today and then lately he likes to come up when I'm laying down and pat my belly really gently, like he's petting a kitten or something.  He is a very affectionate kid, especially when the other two are being naughty, he will say "Mom, I realllly love you." and then once in awhile he will add at the end "because I am the GOOD kid". Okay, you know as parents you do NOT play favorites, but when one kid is yelling "I hate you, you're the worst mother ever!" and the next one is saying "I don't hate you mom, I love you a LOT", sheesh that makes it hard lol!
 Eric tried to redeem himself for the earlier bad behavior tonight by cooking the spaghetti for supper, which was fine but he likes to use a million pots and pans and all the "good" plates so I will be doing dishes for the fourth time today shortly.  I think Holly might have been the worst today, god she was so loud and SO whiny- "Can't we go somewhere fun? Why do we ALWAYS have to CLEAN? cleaning is NOT FUN!" haha, I kindof got a kick out of that, because I was too tired to even argue with them about cleaning their rooms today, i was more worried about the rest of the house. and by suppertime the kitchen was a bonafide disaster again anyway.  (how do other people do it? really?!) We'll save the room battle for tomorrow...
               We have this one plate that when we all eat supper together is always Adam's, it's a giant ceramic plate with a buck on it. I think the kids bought it for him as a present once (it was like a dollar at Gordmans lol.) well now when dad is gone they always argue over who gets to eat off his deer plate. It totally reminds me of when I was a kid, because in our house we had those 4 classic square tupperware plates and the matching plastic cups. I have no idea why but me, brian, and kevin ALWAYS fought over who got the dumb gray plate! It wasn't even great, it had a big burned plastic mark on it. I think I have that plate put away in my "forever" stuff somewhere....the silly stuff you fight over with your siblings when you're a kid!
Even though my kids swear they hate each other sometimes and our house is total chaos, I think when they get older they will be glad they have each other. (And hey that's more people to take care of me when I'm old :p) Four is a good, even number. We can hang the "full house" sign on the door now.Well, as soon as Mabel actually decides to make an appearance! Adam says he has given up. he says he's just gonna count on it being May 2nd and quit getting his hopes up on an early vacation lol. I personally am banking on this full moon thing for tomorrow night. Got her room ready, got the bags packed, time to go little girl!
          Funny story from Jake: he was standing by the back door looking out because we said it was snowing outside and all of a sudden he goes "Well, what in the hell is going on out there?" Oh lord, you know you shouldn't laugh because he'll say it again, but you can't help it. When he was about three, we went past a Kentucky Fried Chicken and he pointed and totally innocently said "Look mom, there's Fuckin Fried Chicken". I almost peed my pants laughing so hard, and since my kids never forget anything, he still thinks that it's funny to sneak that naughty word in when we go past a KFC.  Always the comic relief.....

Time is ticking away...

Funny thing I saw on the news: some vandals hit a golf course in FDL. the wierd thing is they didn't break anything, spray paint, etc. They dug 200 HOLES in the green. It looks like the groundhog from Caddy Shack went crazy. Okay, not funny that they wrecked the golf course, but what you just wonder what the heck people are thinking. Boredom?!
         We found out yesterday that our old neighborhood got hit really bad by the storm on sunday. I would really like to drive out there and check out the damage, but I think it would be too depressing. There was an empty school attached to the church nearby our old house, and the entire school is destroyed.  We had this big dead oak tree in the back yard where an owl used to sit on the top branch in the summer and whoo-whoo away, I wonder if that tree came down. This storm really hit hard all over, I can't ever remember seeing so much damage around here. Every day when we drive to school, I see another house or two damaged that I didn't notice before. You can figure out exactly where the tornado came down, which was exactly the first house hit, and trace the path that it went through every street. They are cleaning up fast, though. One house had the garage totally ripped off, and today when I went by they already have walls up for a new one. Nice to see neighbors helping each other out. Menasha got hit pretty bad too, we noticed on the way to the dr this morning. In the older part of town there are a lot of really massive old trees, not like the newly planted ones in the subdivisions over by us, and those 60 foot trees are just snapped all over like matchsticks.
           Adam made supper tonight while I did the "thursday run" (eric shop, holly dance class, back to shop, baaaack to dance class etc. tiring...) I got to go in for the last five minutes and watch Holly go through her routine, she was so cute. When she knows you're watching she tends to watch YOU instead of watching what the teacher is doing, but she did really good. It used to be when I signed her up for that stuff she would kindof stand in the middle of all the other kids and watch while they screamed and giggled and jumped around, but she definitely is getting into things a little more. What I still cannot figure out is that she goes to school and she DOESNT TALK?! Even this far into the year, her teachers say how quiet she is, but literally as soon as she gets out that door at school and 10 feet down the path, she is talking your ear off about her day.  I am really really hoping the new school, with all her cousins and her daisy and dance class friends with help change that next year.  (Supper was fantastic, by the way. He really went all out, I was very impressed :)
              The doctor's appointment went well, and if Mabel doesn't decide to make an appearance, I will be induced by May 2nd-3rd ish, so thank god I can look at the calendar and breathe a sigh of relief- 18 days at most! I still think she is going to come out on her own. The nurse today pointed out that sunday is a full moon. We were kindof joking about all the women who go into labor when there's a full moon, but I googled it when we got home, and it does make sense- "change in barometric pressure".... hmmm.... well tomorrow wouldn't be so bad either- grandpa's birthday! We actually have a bunch of birthdays coming up in the family again, so I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up on someone's bday. Trying to be optimistic and concentrate on all the stuff I still have to do before she gets here,  instead of concentrating on wearing myself out trying to induce labor haha, but it's REALLY hard. And I get worried just looking at the calendar, all the "stuff" that's coming up in the next month that I have to keep track of. The kids have a million field trips and "someone come to school for reading, lunch, whatev, etc." days, and holly has dance rehearsals and a recital, 2 girlscout events...I get tired even thinking about it. There are big changes ahead in our house, I hope we are all brave enough to deal with them!
             We were in Culvers for lunch today and the family in front of us in line had 3 kids, 2 boys that looked not much older than 3 and 18 months, and a newborn in a carseat (he still had his hospital hat on:). They were so freakin cute, the parents trying to order food and keep track of the kids and the one little boy kept poking at the baby. It reminded me of when our three were all really little like that, hell I do not know HOW I ever managed to keep them all alive and in one piece lol. When Jake was born, Eric was 4, but Holly was only 13 months. She couldn't walk yet, I had to carry her on one arm and swing the carseat over the other arm and hope Eric wasn't far behind.  And I still took them everywhere. Compared to that, I think Mabel is going to be a piece of cake :)

This bun is cooked

grrrrr I am still knocked up.
I know technically I'm not even 37 weeks until sunday, but I'm sure when I go to the doctor tomorrow she's going to measure me at least at 38-39, so I think it's time for Mabel to make her exit, cuz she's putting me through pregnancy hell, and I swear Adam gets up in the morning and gives me this accusing look, like "Are you going to have this kid today or what?" Omg like I'm keeping her in there on purpose! like I LIKE peeing 47 times a day and feeling like I'm going to have a heart attack from walking up one flight of stairs, and laying in bed all night with killer contractions every 10 minutes (that is the WORST- you lay there thinking  "is this it or what? and when you wake up 5 miserable hours later she's still in there...) Perhaps she is waiting for friday, which is grandpa's birthday.....
Jake really wanted to go to Memorial Park today since we haven't been there in forever with all the construction going on, so we went for an hour before he had to go to school. (After my CVS pharmacy run- that place is a hidden gem! laundry soap for 99cents today, who cares if the coupon was in spanish...) He was really excited to see they put in a new walking bridge, but man that walk down the loooooong path was almost the end for me. While he was getting back in the truck, I saw for the first time that he has little sprinkly brown freckles on his nose :) amazing the things that go unnoticed every day when you sometimes forget to look. After school today I let Eric go to the skatepark with his friend since he's been on good behavior status, and he bought me a get well soon card with a big dog on it from Walgreens lol. Gosh I have great kids! And I must look really terrible, because also the lady at the bank this afternoon asked me if I was "in pain".
            We got word yesterday that Adam got a bid for the job in Stevens Point. I guess he gave up the manshack just in time. It will mean more driving (ugh- and the price of gas is killer right now.) but at least he can stay home until work calls and still make it there in time. We've been through that driving thing before, he used to drive to Horicon every day. good thing I didn't give in and let him pack us all up to move to Gladstone :)  It's always an adjustment when he's gone a lot and all of a sudden here all the time again, so especially throwing a new baby into the mix, I think the next few weeks around here are going to get pretty interesting.  All of a sudden there's a ton of stuff going on- his job transfer, Easter, the kids after school activities and field trips. I don't know how I'm every going to keep track of it all.
 Funny story: every single year I swear Adam loses his boat/trailer keys right around the time he wants to start taking the boat out to go fishing and every single year he gets sooo mad and accuses the kids of touching the keys (that have theoretically been missing since last winter). this was today. all hyped up to go fishing and can't find his keys, tearing the house apart, ends up cutting the lock off (again).  (Adam I write it with love haha! The Green Hornet strikes again.)  I bet he put them in a safe place and will find them again in november....

Misery does not love company

First nasty thunderstorms of the season rolling in...I think Jake is a little nervous. He was double-checking that all the bikes were out of the way so I could shut the garage, then him and Holly went around and shut all the blinds and curtains in our house, it was so dark in here it was like midnite lol. Eric used to be the one who was really afraid of storms. When he was 3 yrs old and I was about 8 months preggo with Holly, a tornado came up so fast (literally it was a 1/4 mile away but the sun was shining at our house) that i had to grab him out of his bed while he was taking a nap and huddle in his closet. He has never forgotten about  that!  It was great to finally have some nice weather today, Adam went up north to clean out his manshack since he is giving it up for awhile, and Eric is gone to gramma's so we took a little drive down by the river park. Holly and Jake thought it was hilarious that there were ducks in the village swimming pool:) They didn't last too long at the park, I think because they play on the playground so much at school, it seems like they're getting "too old" for park trips now, now they want to shoot hoops and rollerblade, and go fishing by the river instead. It would  have been a perfect day for us to take a long bike ride, but it will be awhile before I can do that with them again :( Prolly will spend a lot of time this summer toting Mabel and her stroller off for walks in the woods with them instead.
      Yesterday I made Adam come grocery shopping with us, since he is going to be home for the next week and I wanted him to pick out some stuff, otherwise he is a perpetual recorded message over and over. "you never buy anything good. I'm going to Taco Bell". (Well really he just doesn't LIKE anything- nothing in the slow cooker remember?!)  Well it was also 10-double coupon day, so I gave him half the grocery list and I took half and we met when we were done and I threw a bunch of stuff in his cart and gave him some coupons.  He looked like he was getting pretty cranky, until he saw how much money we actually saved. (61.00 and 2 free gallons of milk.)  I however was also starting to get cranky, I swear I was walking through that store and I felt that THUD again like Mabel dropped another inch. Hello-I'm not gonna mince words! Butter knife to the crotch! Theoretically I know babies don't really "drop" like that, but holy man, I hardly could walk through the store, by the time I was in the checkout line I was like in a cold sweat.    Really it's getting ridiculous- it's a beautiful day Mabel, time to come out! 
        One of my friends brought me a labor cake yesterday- nope, didn't work. (It has castor oil in it, thank god you cant taste it.) we bought a pineapple yesterday and I made myself eat it all day long, even in a smoothie- nope, she's still in there. I killed myself cleaning the house again this morning- owwww i will pay for that later when i want to sleep. All I am getting in return are killer contractions that don't count as "being in labor" apparently, because they are not regular enough. (even though i have them pretty much every time i walk, and all night long for the last three nights, bad enough to wake me out of my sleep even. And they're not the same as Braxton Hicks- i have those too,  but these are the real ones that hurt. A lot.)  So uncomfortable and just antsy, like I don't know whether to lay down and cry or get up and walk around.
I seriously do not remember being this miserable with any of the other kids except Jake, and that was only for the week before he was born, and because he was lying on my sciatic nerve so my legs were numb. AND I was pregnant three other times in June, July, and August, and I STILL was not this miserable. This makes me think that there's no way she could possibly stay in there for another 3 weeks. (I'm prolly kidding myself, but if she does, i am in for 3 weeks of hell.) All my other kids were also induced, so this whole thing feels really wierd to me, because I think this one is finally gonna be the one that decides to come out on her own. I feel like that girl who swells up like a blueberry in Willie Wonka, just sitting around waiting to pop like a giant water balloon. . I know there's a lot of stuff I should be doing yet (don't have any of her clothes put away, don't even have a bag packed or anything.) but i really just want to lay down and not move.....

Whew a lot of people are talking about this new show on TLC about the extreme couponers. Im pretty sure if you looked at the rest of their lifes most of those people could flat out be called OCD cases and it would have nothing to do with coupons. I like a good deal as much as the next person, but 100 boxes of spaghetti? Really?!
           That being said, yeah, I do get excited and occassionally sing in the car on the way home when I find good deals, but maybe I just need a life lol. (PS- Pick n Save is having "10-double coupon saturdays for the whole month of April! what luck! )  I found this superneat website earlier tonight at http://www.simplebites.net/, and I can't wait to try some of her suggestions, like making more of my own "pantry staples" at home (spaghetti sauce, syrup, salsa etc,)  We already do a lot of making our own pickles, jam and stuff in the summer, but I always wanted to try growing herbs too, and making our own seasonings. (I have been looking for a recipe for homemade taco seasoning for awhile if anyone has one? tried a few havent found one we like yet.)
Recently I also found this recipe that I guess the Duggars use and a lot of people swear by to make your own laundry detergent. this sounds pretty interesting, if anyone has tried it let me know!
          Today's lovely double coupon day I got 5 free lunchables at Pick n Save, the little make your own sub ones the kids like for their lunches (hurry if you want them- even without double coupons they are 10 for 10 and they have 1.00 off 2 coupons stuck on the fronts, which makes them 50 cents a piece. ), free oreos,  free Kraft Singles, and 3 boxes of Gogurt for 75cents each, and a bunch of stuff for our taco night, basically I saved 22.00 and spent 25 (as long as I save at least 50 perc. I usually consider this a good shopping trip.) and pretty much that is the only grocery shopping I have done for the week, besides my 5.00 trip to Target.
 oooo Target has Purex fabric softener Crystals (I LOVE these in the laundry! I could totally get high smelling this stuff LOL.) unadvertised ringing up at 2.99 this week, used a coupon off the target website and a printable one I found online and got it for 99 cents,  reg priced at about 4.99 :)
          Adam's been home a couple days extra this week, I have not been feeling well (I think he's afraid to leave, I feel like a water balloon ready to pop any second.) so he took some vacation days. Supposed to have a doctor's appt on monday but I am going to see if I can get in before that, because I REALLY feel awful, pretty sure I don't remember feeling this terrible with any of the other kids until right before they were born, and mabel is still technically 3 or so weeks out. I can't imagine her staying in there for 3 more weeks, or maybe I'm just "hoping" because my back is annoyingly painful and the Braxton Hicks contractions are unbelievable- I went to lunch with some friends this aft, and we were sitting at TGI Fridays and I got one so bad my eyes actually started watering , couldn't move couldn't breathe...Wow! I should probably get around to packing a hospital bag sometime soon....


here's a really fun and educational website that the kids like http://www.starfall.com/
and also this is supercool, an eagle's nest in Iowa they just hatched three babies this week. The kids love to watch the mama eagle feed her babies, we look at it every day. http://www.raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/  if it doesn't work for some reason just google "Decorah Eagles". 

had jakes pt conference yesterday, he is doing great. he writes and colors everything green, so funny he's always been biased towards green stuff, since he was a baby he has LOVED frozen peas and green beans. I love his paper where he wrote "When I grow up I am going to eat Oreos all day long" :)

Eric got grounded this week for having attitude issues, so now he is stuck hanging around the house all week trying to earn his "theoretical" points back so he can go to gramma's with his cousins on saturday.

And Jake got grounded for a day (can't do much more than that, he's only 5.) because he's been flipping people the "birdie" finger and he flipped off the neighbor kid's DAD!? I was so embarrassed! Holly saw some other kid do this at school last week, came home and taught Jake to do it, now they keep doing it to each other when they think Im not looking. Sigh. It's always something.....

Free is a good thing, kid.

Whoo-hoo all the free samples  I just signed up for are starting to roll in. Eric opened up the mailbox today and he's like "Mom, WHAT did you order now?"  25.00 worth of swiffer/mr. clean/febreeze coupons, 4 free diapers (okay they're size 5 and Mabel wont wear them for 2 years but whatev! free!), and a tiny cute mini make-up bag from Target with shampoo, lipgloss, lotion, etc, and 25.00 worth of Target beauty coupons. I will have to take that with me to the hospital since I actually got THIS from Adam. And I quote, "Are you going to fix yourself up and put on makeup when you go to the hospital so you look good in the pictures?" REALLY.  I haven't decided whether to think this is funny yet or not. I think we have some free popcorn, deodorant, and crackers coming in the next few weeks too lol. I was reading this blog today about these extreme couponers, and this lady got 60 BOXES of pasta for free by using coupons. Really, now that's ridiculous, I wouldn't even go that far, unless you were going to split it with 15-20 other people.
         Holly lost a tooth at school today, one of her top ones. Kindof sucks that Adam isn't here, he was always good at sneaking in the kids' rooms and getting to those teeth under the pillow without waking them up. I always forget or fall asleep, and I'm sneaking around at 5:30 AM trying to do it without waking them! Once the tooth fairy actually had to come back the next night and leave an apology note and twice as many quarters. She still believes in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, Leprechauns (LOL~) Easter Bunny....we always tried to make them believe in all that stuff as long as possible, it's a piece of childhood you can't ever get back after you lose that! Unfortunately, she's also the NOSIEST KID EVER. I bought a bunch of stuff for the easter baskets already, and I know she has been in my closet, so now I will have to save it for her birthday and get something else...
         Yesterday I think I went a little crazy with the cleaning streak, I started cleaning carpets and emptying closets, and today when I got up I could not MOVE without being hit by major BH contractions, ugh so annoying and painful! Mabel is definitely on a downward path! Couldn't even walk up to Holly's school, the poor teacher must really think I look pathetic, cuz she just waves and sends Holly down the sidewalk so I don't have to shuffle myself all the way up there.  As much as I would like to convince myself she will be here any day, I know it's going to be a loooong 3 weeks at least, though I doubt it she is gonna make it to my gramma's birthday on May 1st. My guess is April 27th or 29th. (Any guesses anyone?!) This is officially "the throes of misery"....

All Life is an Experiment. The more Experiments you make the better :)

Well the chore pay scale actually seems to be WORKING?! for now at least. The boys spent 2 hours cleaning their room tonight and no blood was shed. Holly didn't have to do hers because she had done it 2 days ago and it was still clean, but she did her best attempt at sweeping and swiffering the kitchen floor and earned herself 1.00. I was worried my "low pay scale" wouldn't appeal to Eric much, since the kid is already rolling in dough. (Really. The neighbor paid him 15.00 last week for us to babysit their dog overnight, and he made at least 50.00 this winter shoveling snow. not bad for a 9 yr old.) but he definitely is up for getting every buck. So in conclusion our house is super clean on a wednesday night- which almost never happens!  Great news, since tomorrow we will be having some help getting a massive "rearrange"ing project done.  At this rate I am going to clean myself right into labor. had a doctor's appt on monday and it seems that Mabel had been in the same spot for about 2 months and suddenly she has decided to completely roll from one side to the other, kindof like when you are laying on your side in bed watching tv and you roll over to face the other way. Wierd, she better not start making trouble NOW! It's really getting down to the wire, about 4 weeks or less to go. It's like usually this was always the part for me that went sooooo slow, and it's going too fast this time! Too many things to do before she gets here, and when the hell is this snow gonna melt, I want my rummage sales?!
           Since Jake has had off all this week on spring break, he got stuck running errands with me all day today. I think we went to three different thrift stores. ahhhh they have a Bethesda Thrift on our side of town now- I am sooooo excited! It's kindof my "secret" bargain place. Seems like when we find stuff there, we find a LOT, and it is supercheap, we are talking 99cents for kids jeans, etc. I found this big stack of super duper cute burp cloths- they have lace around the edges- and they were only 49cents each. Still hunting for a dresser for Mabel, but haven't found one yet. We had to return something at the mall  and then had lunch there (Jake can wolf down a whole six inch sub in 5 minutes flat. I cant believe I used to split one sandwich between all three of them...) He got to check out trains at Toys R Us while I percused the clearance racks and free magazine pile, and then we went to Target to try out the whole Target coupon/manufacterer stackable coupon idea.  Well I shouldve waited and went to the Target on our side of town, cuz the one by the mall has a really small grocery section, but we still got some good deals-hand soap for 39cents, 5.00 off formula, fruit roll things for 77cents a box, a bunch of others that was the best I think.  For sure I think the Target brand fruit snacks are always the best deal, and they even taste more "real".  You can get a box of 50 pouches for 6.00 and that usually lasts us a month or more vs. paying 2.50 for the general mills boxes, which only have 6-10 pouches.
               And Jake got 2 packs of free gum, when we got home he wrote his name on the orange pack with a black magic marker, "Jake's Gum" lol, and he could not wait to get Eric and Holly from school so he could give them each a piece of this gum. (They are NEVER allowed to have gum, so it was a big deal. I think he chewed a whole pack in like 3 hours. My only reason is every freaking time I let them have gum it either ends up stuck in the cupholders, on the bottom of one of their shoes, or in someone's hair. I give it a day this time, I will find it somewhere...)
                 I am definitely enjoying this whole being able to print coupons off the web thing, and I messed around with the Swagbucks thing tonight for awhile, but it seems like an awful lot of work. I don't really get where you are supposed to find these "codes", except for the random search thing? Well I got 91 so far.  I could use some suggestions if anyone has any. those amazon gift cards would definitely come in handy.
                Saturday is a big "10 double coupon" day at PnS and Copps, oh the preparation.....:) It's too bad someone doesn't have a blog or a website for us "local" shoppers, like the one I always use is based out of California, so they don't have the Roundys, Festival etc. websites on it. (Or if there IS one, I haven't found it yet!) I would love to do something a little more detailed like that myself but I just don't have time. If anyone knows of one, let me know.

its amazing what kids will do for money

So starting tonight I decided to try something new with the kids regarding their "chores" and money.  We'll see how long it works, it seems like everything only works for so long and I'm always having to come up with something new. They helped me make a chore list, and then they decided how much money each chore would be worth and we hung it on the fridge. Also, we taped "bank" envelopes to the other side of the fridge for each of them so they don't keep losing their dollars. A lot of this stems from the fact that Eric earns a lot of money doing things, and the other two definitely don't understand the value of working for your money yet, but when we go somewhere, ugh, they are always want to pick out stuff and it leads to the "did you bring your money? well then you can't get it," battle. I am usually pretty firm on this, and if they do get to pick something out, it's 1.00 or less. (the bad thing is, Holly has totally conned gramma a bunch of times. Once she came back home with the 17.00 barbie I told her she had to either buy herself or wait for her birthday. As soon as she saw me she got THE guiltiest look on her face...)
They were really into it tonight, scrubbing toilets, swiffering the floor, vaccuuming, etc, but we'll see how long it lasts. I really want them to understand not only that I appreciate their help, but we ALL live here, and we all have to help. The dissarray is getting out of control, and I always think of it as yeah, being mom and cleaning is one thing, but having to physically pick up the crap of four other people just because they're too stubborn to do it is totally another, and it is completely exhausting!                                                    
Tonight the kids and I spent awhile looking at Holly's newborn baby pictures, trying to "guess" what Mabel is going to look like. I had totally forgotten that Holly had a tiny bit of brown hair when she was born, and Eric was only 3, he looks so little. Then Holly said "Mom, you had really blonde hair! Were you wearing a wig?" haha! 4 weeks to go....

Mabel the night-owl?

What? why am I blogging at 2:30 am? Well I didn't sleep three nights in a row, slept 14 hours last night, and now I am insomniated with major heartburn...I think Mabel is going to be a nightowl, she doesn't move all day, and then starts tap-dancing when I wanna go to sleep. Blech, I do not function well on no sleep, so we'll see how this whole baby thing goes haha! Last year when I was working the night shift and not sleeping at ALL (think, work til 6 am, get up at 10:00am to retrieve kids from school,grammas, go back to work at 5:30pm....) I did not realize exactly HOW tired and exhausted I was until that year was up and I stopped working that job. A close friend actually said to me at one point "I'm really worried about you, because you definitely are not all there lately". I was just thinking about this today, because it was a busy day and I felt like I was stumbling through everything-literally. Dropping stuff, forgot my purse halfway to school had to go back, stubbed my lil old toe on the cart in Walmart and bled all over the paint department floor!? Or maybe just too much on my mind and so much for "taking it easy!"....No such thing. Too much to do and running out of time.
        We did get Mabel's room painted tonight in a remarkable 3 hours, with only minor touchups still needed. It is pink and brown, I looooove the way the colors turned out. She's spoiled already, in our first little house Holly had to sleep in the converted laundry room  and Jake had to sleep in the pack and play til he was 1 cuz we didn't have anywhere to put them lol. Tiny and crowded but we survived with fond memories...Eric was our little paint running errand boy, and poor Jake he wanted to paint sooooo bad. He stood in the doorway "You know Mom it would get done lots faster if you had THREE painters".... I told him he had to be 25 years old to paint :)
Well then on top of all this, landlord knocks on our door to babysit his dog for the night. He prolly thinks I'm wierd cuz right away I send eric running for sheets to cover up my furniture, but this is the first new furniture I have EVER had,  I'm a little overprotective of it. I prolly wont get new stuff for a long time, we are definitely use it up wear it out type of people. I do this with my shoes too, which is kindof bad. I am always the person who ends up walking out of somewhere with a broken flip flop.
Last week Adam yelled at me for the "state" of my purse (ahhhh crumbs they are contagious...) alright well I said I will go buy a new purse. HAHA  goodbuy faithful black purse that I paid 1.00 for at a rummage sale last summer...hello 3.00 brown purse small enough to fit in a diaper bag. It was rough, but it was time. Some of my "use it up, wear it out" must have worn off on him, cuz looking at some pics on fb the other day I noticed he is still wearing all the same tshirts and sweatshirts he had 10 years ago :)
          Finally sucked it up and bought a printer for the new computer today (okay, I had a coupon so what lol. It was 100.00 printer I got it for 30 bucks.) oh boyyyyyy Adam thought I had a lot of coupons BEFORE- those were only the ones I got out of magazines and the newspaper.  now that I can print off internet coupons I'm gonna recoup the cost of this lil old laptop in about two weeks heehee. I especially like the coupons on the Target website, because you can double up with "store" coupons and manufacterer coupons.  
           Tomorrow we have my nephews bday part at Chuckie Cheese, sunday nite a family birthday party for the 4 people who have birthdays sat sun mon tues, and next week Jake has an entire week of spring break and the other two have to go to school. You can bet he's gloating about that.  
            I know Holly is going to be pissed and cranky in the morning, because they all fell asleep in her room watching a movie while we painted, and poor old Reggie is just trying to snuggle in there with them and she woke up twice already freakin out. She's not going to be too happy in the morning when she sees he ate one of her My Little Ponies :p