With 5 kids you can imagine, summer is a nonstop quest for me to keep them up to their eyeballs in fun as much as possible. "We're bored" is not an option in our house!
Here's a couple fun and not too expensive ideas if you are looking for a little family adventure nearby.
Little Amerricka. If you're kids loved Bay Beach when they were younger, they will LOVE this place! It's like Bay Beach for big kids. There are some activities for younger kids also, but I think a lot of it is geared towards kids ages 6 and older. It's located down by Marshall, WI
Bay Beach Nature Preserve- I think a lot of times this place gets overlooked because everyone is tired after a day of Bay Beach. There's three different areas, you stop at the first building to feed the ducks and walk through the Aviary, then go down the path to the big nature center building, and then go down another path to a building where there is a few live animals like otters, night creatures, etc.
Old World Wisconsin- Dousman this is a new one for us, which we will be attempting next weekend. It looks right up my kids alley, lots of pioneer games and activities, and they are having Laura Ingalls Wilder Days every weekend in July. We plan on camping in a state park nearby for the night. You can't go wrong with a State park pass and a tent, a night of camping only costs 15.00.
Door County- In Door County we love The Farm. Every year my kids are convinced that the cats from the year before are still kittens, and that cow with the long tongue has been there forever. Also who can forget when the goat ate Jake's paper bag :) Also in D.C, PC Junction is that great restaurant where the train brings your food around the bar, and they have tons of fun activities out back for the kids, like go karts and some unique playground equipment. We always stop and play mini golf at the Red Putter (kids six and under golf free!). The Rusty Tractor is great for breakfast (and not as expensive as some when you get farther up the peninsula.), and Orchard Market is a must for apple cider donuts and cherry soda for around the campfire! For a nice beach, Whitefish Dunes is gorgeous, and they have a little nature center, but you have to be tough enough for the cold water! There's a really nice calmer beach inside Peninsula State Park called Nicolet beach.
Barlow Planetarium: Great way to get a little educational stuff into the summer, and also once a month they have a family night where they bring out the huge telescopes to let kids get a peek at the new moon.
Storybook Gardens- Sheboygan
Basically giant versions of your kids favorite books to play and climb on, and it's free! And one of our favorite beaches, Neshota, is on the way home. Can't beat a day of entertainment for only the price of gas and ice cream.
Hayward Lumberjack World Championships- July 25-27
Wow! I have not gotten around to taking my kids to this one yet, but just from the overview picture on the website it looks like a lot of fun. Also in Hayward is the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame. (also known as "that giant fish you can walk in." a great freebie plus if you're in the area :)
Wisconsin State Fair August 1-11
Last year was the first attempt at this for us, and not gonna lie, i was a little nervous about taking all the kids to Milwaukee myself (we havent ventured down that way too much yet.) but it was AWESOME! US Cellular does a free day for kids so it only costed us 5.00 to get in. Of course, you can spend a fortune buying food on sticks, but i really like that when you buy your tickets inside, they can be used for games OR rides. And those deep fried Snickers bars on a stick are so worth the drive :)
Brown County Fair- August 14-18
This one is one of my favorites for the locals, because for 10.00 admission each the kids can ride as many rides as they want
Kites over Lake Michigan- Labor Day weekend, Two Rivers. Giant show kites, teams doing stunt kites, and lots of games and activities for the kids. On saturday night they have a bonfire on the beach and a gorgeous release sky lanterns. Sunday they have free kite-making for the kids.
So much to do, so much to see.
Happy adventure hunting from our family to yours :)
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Saturday, June 29, 2013
"If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands. If it changes your life, let it."
Wow, it's been a long time since I posted on here! Amazing how much your life can change in 16 months, or even 3 months, or a week, for that matter. You wake up one day and everything is different, good or bad only time will tell, but definitely different. I debated for a long time whether or not to erase all the previous posts and just start over, but chose no. A person can't erase the past, even on a computer. So I choose not to go back and reread the past, but will leave it there as a reminder of how far we've come.
Some thing haven't changed: I'm still cheap (ha!), still afraid to let the kids buy anything from the creepo in the ice cream truck ( ugh, as he drives down our street right now. Thank god they're not home.) , and we still love our adventures. Even with 5 of them now, I refuse to let it stop me from taking them anywhere. Five kids in a tent or at the beach might be a challenge, but it's MY challenge, and I like to think I'm pretty good at directing the herd, haven't lost one of them yet :)
Some things have changed a lot. It's hard to let the kids go, even just for that one day a week, and know that it's a day in their life i have no control over and don't get to be a part of. 52 days a year. Then again, it's also nice to have one day of week to have free time to myself, more of that I think i've gotten in the last 12 yrs. I've been trying really hard to get out and meet people and have some grown up adventures as well.
A lot of people have asked about Aubrie and her surgery, thank you all for your concern! As a mom, going through that surgery with her was one of the hardest things i ever faced. She is doing great, I can't believe she will be a year old in September already. There is some concern that she could develop cysts in her other tube or ovary, but no other problems have shown up so far, so we will hopefully shelf that worry until she is a teenager. My last baby...(for sure this time LOL)....she went for her last ride in the infant carseat today and it made me so sad. It seems like I have been carrying around one of those things practically forever.
The summer hasn't really started out too good for us. It's been dampened (literally and figuratively!) by rain and funerals. Theoretically I know god takes people out of your life so he can bring new ones in, but it still sucks, and it's hard to let go. Here's to hoping July is a better month, and we can put the fun in summer!
Wow, it's been a long time since I posted on here! Amazing how much your life can change in 16 months, or even 3 months, or a week, for that matter. You wake up one day and everything is different, good or bad only time will tell, but definitely different. I debated for a long time whether or not to erase all the previous posts and just start over, but chose no. A person can't erase the past, even on a computer. So I choose not to go back and reread the past, but will leave it there as a reminder of how far we've come.
Some thing haven't changed: I'm still cheap (ha!), still afraid to let the kids buy anything from the creepo in the ice cream truck ( ugh, as he drives down our street right now. Thank god they're not home.) , and we still love our adventures. Even with 5 of them now, I refuse to let it stop me from taking them anywhere. Five kids in a tent or at the beach might be a challenge, but it's MY challenge, and I like to think I'm pretty good at directing the herd, haven't lost one of them yet :)
Some things have changed a lot. It's hard to let the kids go, even just for that one day a week, and know that it's a day in their life i have no control over and don't get to be a part of. 52 days a year. Then again, it's also nice to have one day of week to have free time to myself, more of that I think i've gotten in the last 12 yrs. I've been trying really hard to get out and meet people and have some grown up adventures as well.
A lot of people have asked about Aubrie and her surgery, thank you all for your concern! As a mom, going through that surgery with her was one of the hardest things i ever faced. She is doing great, I can't believe she will be a year old in September already. There is some concern that she could develop cysts in her other tube or ovary, but no other problems have shown up so far, so we will hopefully shelf that worry until she is a teenager. My last baby...(for sure this time LOL)....she went for her last ride in the infant carseat today and it made me so sad. It seems like I have been carrying around one of those things practically forever.
The summer hasn't really started out too good for us. It's been dampened (literally and figuratively!) by rain and funerals. Theoretically I know god takes people out of your life so he can bring new ones in, but it still sucks, and it's hard to let go. Here's to hoping July is a better month, and we can put the fun in summer!
Friday, March 23, 2012
Hell hath no fury....
I know I haven’t blogged in quite awhile. Originally we had signed up for this wifi service in town and all of a sudden one night it stopped working because –alas!-the company had filed for bankruptcy. We never bothered to sign up for a new internet service after I discovered Holly has a “hotspot” in her room from either the pizza factory or the supper club, but it’s a little iffy at working all the time. Sometimes I have to sneak into her room after she’s asleep to use it :p I really should just give in and get a smartphone w/wifi , but I hate that swipey bullcrap!
I wont go into long recap over the last couple months. We had a really nice fall and Christmas. In January we had an awesome party with all of our friends to celebrate my 30th birthday. I remember on my birthday, I was so freaking happy, seriously my arms were tingling. (My spidey senses?) Even for a week or two afterwards, I kept thinking “this is too good. Everything is too good, I KNOW we’re in for a fall, I just keep waiting for the ball to drop”. And drop it did. Everything in our life has always gone in stages of “Two steps forward, one step back”, so I don’t know why I was even surprised.
Another baby on the way. I was soooo pissed at Adam, I'm not going to deny it. Alli is only 11 months old, and I love my time during the day with her, because it's something I never got with the other kids while I was working. I spent a month being unbelievably depressed and hardly able to function. It seems selfish, right? I am surrounded by tons of people trying to have babies and I’m on my 5th ONE. And I love my kids, but the fact of the matter is, Adam is gone a LOT, and I take care of them by myself 95% of the time. It’s hard. And exhausting. There’s no one to pass the baby off to when she’s squawking and I’m trying to make dinner. There’s no one to do the baths while I help with the homework. I have to run up and down the stairs 25 times and try to do both. It’s not that he doesn’t try when he’s here, he’s just hardly ever here, and on his two days off, you can bet his mind isn’t really on worrying about any of that stuff.
There’s been a lot of fighting about it in this house lately. A lot of things got said and done by both of us that probably shouldnt have, and that makes me sad. We didn’t even really know for sure there was a baby until last week, and when she brought up the pic on the ultrasound, I realized how selfish both of us were being, fighting over stupid stuff that should have been easy to work out. But it’s too late now. Adam did something he came never take back, and now we both agreed he should move out. Again. I can’t believe I am facing this same situation again. It’s not any easier than it was the last time.
He’s in the same town, but not so far away that the kids cant see him whenever they want. Mostly we’re not even fighting, except over the Stupid Homewrecking Bitch that shall remain nameless. (hey, I said I wouldn’t bash her any more on fb. No promises on the blog.) I have been trying to figure out all week: If you are a wife or mom who has been cheated on, you know what a terrible feeling it is. So why in god’s name would you want to subject another woman and her children to that pain? No morals? And yeah, I should be bashing Adam more in that sentence, but the truth is, I don’t know why I should be surprised, he’s always sortof been a lunkhead when it comes to women. (Sorry. There is no other way to put it.)
I’m trying to keep myself busy by not dwelling on the “details”. (Ugh that is IMPOSSIBLE. I’m a writer. I want to know every single detail of everything, and you can bet that doesn’t make a pretty picture in your head at night when you are trying to sleep.) Seeing friends, staying busy with my funny, smart, wonderful kids, and trying to decipher in my head how in the hell I am going to take care of 5 kids by myself. People keeping telling me I’m strong, but I don’t feel strong at all. I’m hurt and I’m pissed and I really just want to kick her ass. Who the hell does she think she is, anyway? What does she think makes her so “great” that she’s gonna last? I know she won’t, because none of the other ones did. Me, I lasted 12 years. I’m not a giver-up-er. I’m the one who drove to Escanaba and Green Bay and Fon Du Lac, and picked up his dirty clothes and boots for 12 years, and survived a 17 hour car ride to Tennessee with him, and cooked pretty much every godforsaken thing you can imagine for dinner trying to make him happy. I was Gomes, that bitch will never be Gomes! And what did I get out of it? Well….4.5 awesome amazing kids. (If everything goes okay, Bruno will probably be here via c-section in mid-September.)
But lately it’s hard to accept that there’s a difference between giving up and letting go. The stubborn “Gomes” in me doesn’t really want to do either one.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
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 :)
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 :)
Saturday, October 15, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
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.....
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.....
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