Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Just another day

Monday was our 8th anniversary, and to celebrate we ...well, nothing actually. It was just another day in the life of being parents of 5 kids, and one working his full time job as usual. But, to make things even better, Sean had to work from home that evening, and ended up staying up all night to get the stuff done. What a way to celebrate, huh? I hate to sound like a complainer though, because it really didn't bother me, and I actually find it kind of funny that's how our day ended up. Maybe someday we can find a way to truly celebrate on our anniversary. We both have high hopes for our 10th!

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Day 23

Today I am thankful for Sean's family. I'm sure they don't always get me or understand why I am the way I am, or do the things I do, but they love our family regardless, and I love them too. :)

Day 22

Today I am thankful for rainy days that make for extra long nap times. 4 hour naps from both of my napping kids rocks!

Monday, November 21, 2011

Day 21

Today I am thankful for Thanksgiving being this week. I cannot wait to eat a TON of yummy food made by my mom!

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Day 20

Today I am thankful for the time spent with family this time of year. I know we don't see everyone we want to as often as we'd like, but it's great when we can spend time with our families, even if it's a short visit. :)

Day 19

Today I am thankful our kids have such an amazing father. He is such an involved, loving, and patient father, and I know how lucky we are to have him.

Day 18

Today I am thankful that we are nearing the end of the baby days in our house. I love babies, and have enjoyed the blessing of having 5, but I am ready to move out of the baby phase and onto the next chapter of life.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Day 17

Today I am thankful to have my car back. I was without it for 2 days while it was in the shop getting something repaired that really only caused it to fail the emissions test, and didn't affect the driving ability of the car, but whatev, I have my car back, YAY!

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Day 16

Today I am thankful for online bill pay. I would be lost if I had to pay bills the regular way and mail them out. In fact, we probably would have no lights or water if I had to mail a check in, because I would never remember to do it on time.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Day 15

Today I am thankful for sleep. Brooklyn has finally started having some nights she actually doesn't wake up, and I feel so rested the nest day, even if I only got 4-5 hours of sleep.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Day 14

Today I am thankful for the internet. How else would I know what a Navajo Hogan house is supposed to look like?

Day 13

Today I am thankful for weekend time as a family. They go by too fast, but I love when we get to spend some time together as a family of 7 without work, school, or other activities to interrupt.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Day 12

I'm a day late on this, but today I am thankful for all our armed forces, current and past, for all the sacrifices they and their families have made to protect our country.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Day 11

Today I am thankful for my kids' grandparents. Our kids are lucky enough to have 5 amazing grandparents who love them bunches. :)

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Day 10

Today I am thankful for my friends. I have some amazing people in my life that I am lucky enough to call friends. Some of you I have known for MANY years, and some of you are people I have only met recently, but you are all important to my and I'm glad to have you in my life. :)

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Day 9

Today I am thankful for coffee. Some mornings that's the only way anybody gets where they are supposed to be.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Day 8

Today I am thankful for our home. It may not be our dream house, but it is a warm, and comforting place for our family to be together and share the love we have for each other.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Day 7

Today I am thankful for my extended family. I am incredibly lucky to be part of a very large, very amazing family. Our family is one I can always count on to be there when I need them, even if that need came in the middle of the night. My family is priceless!

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Day 6

Today I am thankful for my family's health. We are truly blessed to have 5 perfectly healthy children, and for Sean and I to be healthy enough to keep up with them. They are a rambunctious crew for sure!

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Day 5

Today I am thankful for Sean's job. It may not always make me happy, but it provides for our family. Watching others struggle recently, it is not lost on me how lucky we are that Sean has a great job that not only provides for our family, but allows me to stay home with the kids.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Day 4

Today I am thankful for my husband. He has put up with me and my craziness for a long time, given me 5 amazing kiddos, and supported me through some of the greatest and some of the worst times of my life. I am so grateful he chose to spend the rest of his life with me. I am one lucky lady.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

day 3

Today I am thankful for my mom. She has taught me you can accomplish anything you put your mind to. Her strength and courage even when life gets REALLY hard is amazing to see. She is alwyas there for my family and I don't know what we would do without her.

18 years

Today is hitting me extra hard this year. It was hitting me hard yesterday too in fact. I got on facebook yesterday, and one of the first things I saw was this picture my cousin had uploaded.
I instantly teared up thinking about those two amazing men that left our family much too soon. The one on the right is my dad, and the other is my uncle, my dad's brother, who was the closest thing I had to a dad after my father passed away. My uncle died in 2007 just 3 days after Megan was born. He never even got to meet her. The day he was planning to come visit us and meet her was the day he passed away of a sudden heart attack. His daughter, the cousin that posted the picture, and I have always been close. Somehow she knew I needed a little pick me up already, and a reminder that they are always with us.
The past few years this anniversary has made me sad, but not really affected me the way it is this year. I have no idea why I am having such a hard time this year. I feel like I need to walk around with a warning label on my forehead that I could burst into tears at any moment. It's a little ridiculous, and it makes me feel stupid. I wish I could talk to Sean about how I am feeling, but I just don't think he can relate, and he definitely doesn't know what to say to be comforting. I can't really blame him though. How on earth would he know what to say or do to help when a) he's never lost a parent, and b) he's not an emotionally connected person.
Any suggestions on how to handle feeling like this? I don't want to upset my kids because I'm upset. Also, any suggestions on broaching the topic with Sean? I want to be able to talk to him about this, but don't really know how to approach it, and I don't know what to tell him I need from him to help me. Granted, sometimes all I need is a hug, but I'm sure he could use some helpful tips on other ideas when I'm having a rough day.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Day 2

Today I am thankful for my amazing kids. They can frustrate me like nothing else, and bring a smile to my face like nothing else, and sometimes do both at the same time. They truly are amazing gifts I have been given.

day 1

I decided this year I wanted to do the 24 days of thanksgiving, and then forgot to post day 1about yesterday. Oops, lol! So here is day 1; I am thankful for a God who is always loving and willing to forgive, no matter how many times I stumble in trying to walk His path in life.

Friday, October 28, 2011

who's training who?

So, I had planned this post in my head today, and then this evening, something amazing happened that made me totally rethink what I had planned to say. 
The original post was something like this;
I have been working on getting Jackson to use the potty for the last month.  It has been a difficult journey because he's a very stubborn kid, and I could barely even get him to sit on the potty, let alone use the darn thing for a long time.  I tried every bribe I could think of to get him to sit on it to see it wasn't really scary like he tried to make me believe it was, but as with everything in Jackson's world, we had to wait for him to do it in his own time.  He finally made it past being afraid of the potty, but was still very reluctant to use it.  For a couple weeks I cleaned up a lot of puddles, but I decided to stick with it, but also not be a Hitler about it.  I would offer at certain times (when he got up, before and after meals, before and after naps, etc.), and if he would try that was great, and if not, that was ok too.  I know the experts would say the laid back approach is all wrong, but with Jackson, pressing the issue just wasn't going to work, and backing off completely would have meant he would go to kindergarten in diapers.
So, little by little, Jackson has gotten to the point that he has not worn any diapers, or had any accidents in the past week, but we have a problem.  He never tells me when he needs to potty, he just waits around, and stays dry, until I take him at those normal times.  He even stays dry overnight, which is a long time, but I just can't get him to ever tell me he needs to potty.
Here is the crazy thing; I was going to ask if I should just keep doing what we are doing, or if I need to do something differently to get him to the point that he tells me, but this afternoon, Jackson came upstairs, went into the bathroom, and took himself potty.  I heard him in there and asked what he was doing and he told me "I'm going poop!"  Boy, was I excited.  I know that is the craziest thing to be excited about, but I was really stressing that I had done something wrong and that Jackson wasn't really potty trained.  I felt like I had just trained myself to take him potty and he didn't really get it.  Thank the Lord that things seem to be changing.  Fingers crossed this trend continues with Jackson and I will only have one more kid to get through potty training. 

Thursday, October 20, 2011

thank God for moms!

The last month has been crazy around here.  Sean has been out of town for two weeks for work, and even though my mom was around to help a ton, I still felt like they were the longest weeks of my life.  Brooklyn had an ear infection during Sean's first trip, which meant very little sleep the first couple of days until her meds kicked in.  His first trip was also just over a week after my surgery, so that made things interesting.  Thankfully I was making an awesome recovery, so I wasn't feeling too bad by the time he left.  His second trip was better since we were all well, but I had meetings somewhere for the kids almost every night that week, so my poor mother was at my house almost more than she was at hers.  Thank God we have her around!  I don't know what we'd do without her.  Not only would I be a lot crazier, we would probably be totally broke from paying for babysitting all these times that I have had stuff to do that the kids couldn't attend.  She has been driving up to our house at least twice a week to help us out for the past couple of weeks, and unfortunately things don't look like they are going to slow down anytime soon.  I am hopeful we'll be cutting her hours back to one day a week soon though, lol!

In other news, GO CARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thursday, October 6, 2011

family calendar

The kids are getting older, which means more and more activities are filling up our calendar.  Our small dry erase calendar just isn't cutting it anymore.  I can't fit all the things in on some of the days because it seems like everyone is going in a different direction.  I decided it was time to buy a bigger more organized calendar to keep up with everything that is going on.  I considered trying to make my own so it could be totally customized for our needs, but I decided to give one of these pre-made designs a shot for this year. I was torn between this calendar

and this one
Ultimately, I decided to go with the first one because I like being able to see our plans a month at a time, instead of by the week.  I have a feeling in a couple years I'm going to need the second type of calendar as we add more and more to our family schedule, but for now I'm hoping the calendar I chose works out for us. 
What kind of family calendar does everyone else use?  What do you love and hate about it?

Friday, September 30, 2011

ditching the blog?

For a while now I've been wrestling with the idea of continuing to blog vs. ditching blogging altogether.  I started this blog before EVERYONE was on facebook (hard to remember times like that isn't it?), and over time I've just been using facebook more and more, and blogging less and less. Facebook is definitely easier than blogging for me.  It takes less time, there are a lot more people "following me" over there, vs. me not really knowing how many people read the blog, I can post something and get almost immediate responses to my questions,  uploading pictures to share is easier, and of course, it takes less time, lol! 
I didn't stop blogging entirely because I have nothing to say on here, but more that I'm not sure my current readers would be interested in anything I have to say.  This blog originally came about as a way to keep extended family updated on what's going on here with some pictures thrown in, and it hasn't really evolved much past that.  I have no desire to be a full time blogger who earns a living blogging.  Lord knows I am not a good enough writer for that.  But, there are times I have something I want to say and get some outside input on, or I have an idea to share that might help other people out, but then I hesitate to post because I don't want to offend anyone, and I definitely don't want to bore people with mundane crap.  There is enough crap on the internet already, I don't need to add to it.
So what say you people of blog land?  How do you feel about blogging?  I'll be honest and tell you I don't read nearly as many as I used to BF (before facebook).  I still have a ton in my google reader, but I sometimes just skim or even skip completely a lot of the posts.  Who knows, maybe I'll just keep blogging for me, and if anyone reads it, yay, and if not all well.  Blogging may help me out more than it helps anyone else anyway. When I've had a rough day, or am going through something difficult, sometimes I just want to talk about it, and I thin kmy poor husband gets sick of hearing about it from me.  Not that he's not understanding and sympathetic, but when he's the only ear I'm always bending about the same stuff, I think it wears on him too.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

color advice needed

Okay folks, I need some color advice.  I painted our living room, foyer, and hallway about 5 years ago.  I do like the colors, but I'm not so in love with them anymore.  For those who really know me, you know I like to change paint colors like I change my underwear, so 5 years is a very long time for one color to stay on my wall in any room.  So, I'm itching to change it, but not sure what direction to go with it. 
Here is what it looks like now with the new floor we put down
and this is what our furniture looks like
I plan to keep the neutral couch and love seat in there, and would prefer to keep the same curtains.  Here is a link to the curtains I have.  We have the "rich red" color. Also, that yellow color will likely stay in the foyer and hallway for the time being so whatever color I use needs to go well with that yellow.  I feel like not only is it time for a change, but a more neutral color in there would probably be better when we decide to sell the house.  For reference, the kitchen is valspar cliveden pasture, and the yellow in the living room and hallway is Behr beachwalk.
I have a feeling when this room is done I may feel the need to repaint the kitchen a more neutral color since it is pretty bold color.  I really do like the color in my kitchen, but again, I'm very worried about potential buyers hating it.  Our house is not on the market yet, and I don't really know for sure when it will be, but I don't want to leave tons of projects to do right before we put it up for sale.
Anyway, please give me some ideas for this room.  My ideas are all over the place and I'm just not sure where to go with it. 

Friday, June 10, 2011

Hiatus

ok, wow!  I was on a blogging hiatus for quite a while huh?  Here's the thing; I have nothing to blog about.  Anything I feel like saying or sharing lately get posted in a two sentence status update on facebook, or as a picture on facebook.  I think it's kind of sad my whole life can be summed up in a facebook status, but it is what it is.
Anyway, a quick rundown on the past couple of months.
  • Brooklyn started walking when she was 9 months old.  Quite ridiculous if you ask me.  She now basically runs around chasing her siblings and all the other neighborhood kids.
  • Brooklyn still does not sleep through the night, and is still nursing a ton.  She does however eat a lot of real food now.  I just have to figure out how to get her to drink from a cup.
  • I've been trying to potty train Jackson, but he's so lazy and resistant it's been awful.  I'm taking a break right now because I just can't handle cleaning up anymore "accidents" for a while.  I desperately want him to be potty trained soon, but obviously there is only so much I can do to make that happen.  The rest is up to him to be willing to do what he knows how to do.
  • Emma, Megan,and I had our first dance recital together.  It was really fun, but totally crazy taking care of all 3 of our stuff and costume and shoe changes.
  • Emma had her first communion
  • Brooklyn turned one and loved her cake.

  • Nathan turned 7!!!!  Holy crap, my two oldest are 7 and 8 now.  Craziness!
  • Emma and Nathan are finally out of school for the summer
  • I turned 28.  :(  EEK!  Now I'm only 2 years away from 30.  Seriously having a hard time with that.
  • My sister-in-law, brother, Sean and I threw a surprise party for my mom.  It was awesome and she was totally shocked.  
  • We took the kids to my mom's to swim for the first time this year, and Brooklyn loved the pool.  Yay for another water baby!

Maybe I'll get creative and come up with some fun things to blog about, and maybe not and you'll just get random posts here and there catching up on things.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Brooklyn is 9 months

Brooklyn is 9 months old today, well sort of.  I figure it must be today by default since there was no February 29th.  She is 17 pounds 2 ounces, and 27 inches long.  So the doctor says she a tiny little thing, but really I don't think she's that small, and I know she's not any smaller than the other kids were at this age.  Well, except for Nathan, but he was a moose until he turned one, and then started slowing down.  Anyway, she's doing great, even if she's on the smaller side.  She still doesn't sleep through the night, although we are down to 2 wake-ups only most nights, which isn't too bad.  Plus I know the extra nursing overnight is helping her gain enough, and helping maintain my supply.  Really, I don't even remember what it's like to go to bed and not have to get up once or twice in the middle of the night, so it's not like I know what I'm missing.
Brooklyn is always on the go, and just today she has started standing up totally on her own.  We are not talking pulling up on things, she's done that for a couple months.  We are talking sitting in the middle of the room with nothing around her, and pushing herself up to standing without holding onto anything.  Once she gets her feet under her in sort a squat-like position, she just stands up.  It's crazy!  I know she's going to be walking very soon.  Megan walked at 10 months, which I felt was so early, but I think Brooklyn might beat that at the rate she is going. 
Brooklyn's newest food discovery is crackers.  She loves crackers.  She still doesn't care for baby food, or really anything you can spoon feed her, but if she can feed it to herself, she loves it.
The biggest problem right now is Brooklyn hates the bath.  Really, I don't know if hate is strong enough to describe it.  She loves taking a shower, but hates the bath.  Her feet hit the water in the tub and she starts screaming until you take her back out.  It's the oddest thing, and I have no idea why she hates it.  The water temp is fine, so I know she's not freezing or getting burnt.  Any ideas about this?
All in all, I seriously can't believe Brooklyn is 9 months old.  Time has gone by so fast it's incredible.  In 3 months I won't have an infant anymore, or ever again.  I'm just really not sure how to feel about that.

Emma turns 8!!!!!!

Holy Crap!  Emma is 8 years old!  :thud:  It's hard to believe this
was 8 years ago.  It seems like much, much less.  Emma is such a grown up little woman.  I called her girl kid (something silly I do with all the kids) the other night, and she argues she was not a kid, she's a young adult.  In numbers of years, I feel I have to disagree, but in maturity, she is so right.  Being the oldest of 5 has caused her to grow up fast, but I think even if we had stopped at two kids, she'd still be mature for her age.  Even when she and Nathan were little she was always motherly and acted much older than she was.  She is so patient and loving with the younger kids, and I love watching her interact with Jackson and Brooklyn.  Jackson will even run to Emma, instead of me, sometimes when he is hurt or upset.  It's awfully cute seeing Emma be the mother hen to the other kids.
Emma is LOVING dance and the tumbling class she started this year.  She has definitely caught up to the other girls in her dance class, and she is doing great!  Of course I think she gets her natural ability from me, lol!  I really love watching her enjoy something I have always loved.  She went to one of my dance classes and marvelled at how good I was.  I told her someday she would for sure be better than me if she stuck with dance and keeps practicing, so that definitely motivates her.
In addition to adding a tumbling class, Emma also started girl scouts this year.  She loves going to her meetings and events, and it seems like she is making friends with a nice group of girls.  If Emma had her way, she would join every activity out there.  She sure has come a long way from the introverted kid who didn't want to participate in anything that didn't include mom or dad.  I never would have expected her to be such a social kid.

First Birthday

2nd birthday

3rd birthday

Fourth Birthday

Fifth Birthday

Sixth Birthday


Seventh birthday

 Eighth Birthday

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

catch-all

Does everyone have a catch-all room or space?  Admittedly, we have a LOT of stuff.  We try to sort through and get rid of stuff we don't need anymore, but it's been a while since I've done that, so things are kind of piling up on me.  We have part of the basement still unfinished for storage, but sadly, that is full, and all the excess stuff is spilling out and ending up in the office that is really supposed to be a dining room.  I don't mind that room ending up as a storage are since it's not a room I have to be in much, but I do hate it because of the room's location.  It is right inside the front door.  So, when people come over, or someone comes to the door, the first thing they see is a room that looks like we are hoarders.  For real, it's bad right now.  It's not stacked up to the ceiling, but it's pretty full, and there really is just a path around the table in the room.  The rest of the floor is full of stuff, and there is stuff piled on top of that stuff.  It's so bad, but I don't know what else to do with it all right now.  I want to have a garage sale this spring to get rid of most of it, but in the mean time, it's just sitting in the office taking up space.
If you don't have a catch-all room, how do you keep stuff from piling up?  Do you not have extra stuff?  I do not consider myself a "stuff" person.  When I sort through the excess, if it hasn't been used since the last sort, or 6 months, then it goes in the 'get rid of' pile, but somehow over the years, we've still amassed a ton.  I'm sure part of it is having 5 kids and all the gear, toys, and clothing that they need, but even without them, I bet this would still be an issue, though maybe on a smaller scale.  Please tell me we are not the only house/family with this problem.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

bathroom pictures

Haha, oops!  Just realized I forgot to add pictures of the bathroom to the last post.  Unfortunately, I didn't take a pic of the room with the carpet, but it was the same as the living room carpet, so just use your imagination.  :)


color before


color after

and a picture of the tile. (yes the transition strip is missing between the tile and wood, but it's there now)

I haven't put the mirror back up yet either because I'm going to get it cut down.  It was so big before (as wide as the vanity), and I feel like it would look better if it was a smaller size.

Next up for renovations at the house;  putting a bathroom in the basement.  I think we'll be hiring professionals to do the plumbing and electrical down there, and then Sean and I will do the rest.  I don't need a flood or a fire in the house because we tried to do it ourselves, lol!

Monday, February 14, 2011

New floors

In the past few weeks we put in new flooring in the living room, foyer, and main floor bathroom.  The living room and bathroom had carpet, and the foyer had linoleum, and all of that was the stuff put in when we built the house 5 1/2 years ago.  It was all decent flooring originally, but with all the kids, the carpet was pretty awful, and the linoleum had been marked up some, and I figured if we were replacing the living room floor, we may as well do the foyer since they run together.  What I didn't know was there was an extra piece of underlayment under the linoleum that would be a royal pain to remove, but by the time we realized how hard it was going to be, it was too late to change our minds.  Even though it was a much bigger job than we thought it would be, I'm so glad we got it all done with the exception of the extra trim that I need to paint and install.  We put a wood laminate floor in the living room and foyer, and tile in the bathroom.  Originally I wanted hardwood, but we just couldn't justify spending that kind of money right now, especially if we end up moving in the next year.
I also painted the bathroom a neutral tan.  I loved the color in the powder room, but it was definitely not something everyone would love.  So, since we were tearing everything else out to do the floor, it just made sense to repaint now.
Now, the pictures.

good-bye carpet

hello new floor!

and of course a picture of the cutest helper ever.  She was helping put down the underlayment.  :)



See that mark on Jackson's right cheek?  He found a magic marker...  OOPS!


This was where all the kids gathered to watch the carpet start to come out.  It was such an exciting/interesting process for the kids to watch.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

neglect

How on earth do other moms juggle it all?  I feel like in order to get one thing done, I have to neglect something else.  If I need to clean house, I don't spend as much time playing with the kids.  If I want to do something for me, I neglect spending time with the family.  I really feel overwhelmed lately by all I should be getting done each day.  For a couple weeks my house was really clean, but I realized it was at the expense of my kids, and it hadn't been much fun for them while I was cleaning and not playing with them.  The sad thing is, I wasn't doing any deep cleaning that desperately needs to be done.  I was just trying to keep up with the bare minimum around here. 
As a family of 7, we generate enough dishes, laundry, clutter, and crumbs to keep me plenty busy almost all day every day. By the time Sean gets home I barely have enough energy to get us all fed and the kids into bed.  Once the kids are in bed, I'm so exhausted I just CAN'T motivate myself to do anything other than sit on the couch, mess around online, and watch tv.  I know this is bad, and if I could force myself to do just one hour of work after bedtime, I would get a ton of things done, but knowing and doing are two different things.
I am so embarrassed by the state my house is in right now.  Sean's sister and her family stopped by unexpectedly Monday night, and I was so sorry that had to see our house in it's current state.  Part of the problem is we are putting down a new floor in the main floor living room, but aside from that, the island is so full of stuff you can't even tell what color the countertop is, the floor is scattered with crumbs and dirt tracked in from the snowy mess outside, and of course, the basement is just one big toy box with toys everywhere.  My brother-in-law assured me the house was fine, and no big deal, and the mess was minimal considering we have 5 kids, but I wanted to crawl in a hole.
I know things will get better as the kids all get older and not only are able to help out, but need me less.  I met a mom of 4 at the orthodontist last week, and she was the sweetest, nicest lady ever.  Her kids are older, and she saw me struggling with all the kids in the waiting room and she jumped right in and helped me out.  I asked her to tell me it gets better, and she said, "No, just hard in different ways." I already knew that, but talking to her really did help.  She reminded me I am at the most physically demanding stage of motherhood.  All the kids need me for so many things right now and spending all my energy taking care of them is leaving me with no energy to take care of myself or the house. 
Imagine dividing your energy reserves among 4 people, and see how little you are left with.  It's no wonder I'm wiped out at the end of the day.  I think the mental exhaustion is just as bad as the physical.  The kids wear me down so much some days I just feel like crying.  Then I feel guilty I'm not enjoying the kids while they are young, since I know I'll miss these days when they are all grown. 
So am I alone in feeling like it's a constant neglect juggling act?  Is it like this for all moms?  Is it just worse because I have 5 fairly young kids instead of just one or two?

And mama Sue, sorry I haven't blogged in a while, it's obvious neglect is creeping in here too.  :)

Saturday, January 22, 2011

The Princess turns 4!

My little Princess Megan is 4 today!  Where does the time go?  I still remember vividly my water breaking at 3:45am and driving to the hospital in the snow on un-plowed roads.  When my water broke, I woke Sean and told him and he asked, "what do we need to do?"  I told him first I needed a towel, and then we needed to head to the hospital. You'd think by the third kid he'd know how it all worked, but I guess since I had to wake him up in the middle of the night, I have to give him a break.
Anyway, Megan is the funniest, most loving, neediest little girl. I love her to death, but she wears me down faster than any of the other kids.  This doesn't really surprise me, though; she was born needy.  In keeping with her beginnings, she still the crappiest sleeper.  Thankfully once she's asleep she's fine, but getting her to sleep is a battle every night.  But, I can't say I don't enjoy it when she comes into my bed for a 10 minute snuggle some nights.  She's a great snuggler.  :)
  Megan is too smart for her own good.  I have a feeling school will probably come easy for her, if she can just find the motivation.  If she wants to do something, it's so easy for her, but if she doesn't want to, you can forget it.  You cannot bribe this child.  Until her, I'd never met a kid that couldn't be bribed with something; either a special treat or special activity just for them, but none of that works with Megan.  I'm sure her stubborness will serve her well later in life, but for now it just frustates me most days.
She is loving her dance class with Miss Ann, and cannot wait to starts school like Emma and Nathan.  We will probably put her into preschool in the fall, but I worry she'll be disappointed she can't go to school on the bus with Emma and Nathan just yet.
Megan is such an amazing little girl. She can test your patience like no other, but loves so whole-heartedly, you can't stay angry for long.  She makes each day such an adventure, and even though she makes me crazy some days, I wouldn't change a thing about her.  Happy birthday to my Princess.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Let's Talk...Chore charts

I'm not a list type person.  Hard to believe, I know.  I mean you'd think with 5 kids, lists would be the most important part of my life, but I just don't do lists.  I will often go to the grocery store without a list, and generally I get everything we need, and not too many extras.  How I survive without lists, I really don't know. 
My kids, on the other hand, are list people.  I often ask Nathan how it is possible he can behave so well at school, but completely ignore the rules when he's at home.  His answer, "Because they have signs with the rules on them at school."  Apparently he needs that constant visual reminder that jumping on the furniture is not ok.  Not really sure why telling him not to jump on the furniture for the last 6 years hasn't worked, and according to him a posted sign will work, but whatever.  I'm willing to try it I guess.
So this brings me to my latest consideration, assigning chores to the kids.  I'm at a loss how to start this.  The kids don't really have official chores right now, though I would like to make some.  I'd also like to add doing their homework and reading a book each day as part of their responsibilities, so it won't be just a chore chart.  Any suggestions on making this?
I'm thinking of doing a spreadsheet for each kid.  The left column would list each "to do" item, and the rest of the columns would be one for each day of the month. I'd print it off and the kids could mark off each item they do each day, and we'd set a goal for each week or month and if they meet their goal they'd earn something.  Not sure yet what that something would be though.
Does anyone else do chore charts and have any advice?  Seen anything cool online on this topic?  We didn't do stuff like this growing up, so I'm rather in the dark about this.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Happy New Year 2011!

So do I win for the latest Happy New Year blog post?  lol!  I kept meaning to post about new years, and then the kids went back to school and their activities started, and time just got away from me again.
A few tidbits for now:
  • Mom's bathroom is finally done.  I haven't been over there since my brother finished installing the mirror and stuff like that, so I still don't have an after picture.  I want to go do that this weekend.
  • Emma is going on her first girl scout camping trip this weekend.  She is so excited; I'm very nervous.  I'm sure she'll be fine since she spent the night at one of the leaders' house during winter break.  I can't believe my baby is big enough for stuff like sleepovers and overnight trips without me.  I of course was welcome to go along, but since I can't take Brooklyn, I don't get to go.  Darn those nursing babies!  (just kidding of course)
  • I started dancing again.  It's just a tap class, but it's for adults, and it's something I'm doing that is just for me.  It was very hard for me to commit to doing this.  I know it's important for moms to make time for themselves, but knowing it and doing it are two different things.  I have a hard time shutting off the guilt for taking time for myself.  I know at the end of the day Sean is tired, so I feel bad leaving him with all the kids, plus the class is on Emma's girl scout meeting night, so Sean has to take care of that.  Also we are already so busy I hated to add one more thing to our schedule.  But, when I mentioned it to Sean, he really encouraged me to just go for it, and we'd figure out the rest.  I've only been to one class, but it felt so good to put those shoes back on.  :)
  • I am taking Emma and Nathan for their first orthodontist visit next week.  I know they'll both need braces, so if anyone wants to contribute for that, let me know.  lol!  Seriously, I bet all of our kids will need braces since Sean and I both needed them, but maybe we'll get lucky and the orthodontist will give us the 5th one free or something. 
  • Lastly, I have something big going on this weekend that I can't talk much about, but I'm super excited, and will have pictures to share next week.  :)