More Halloween fun!

Today we went to the Halloween party at the church. There was a lot to do. Trick or treat was set up all through the church, there was food and cotton candy and popcorn. They had inflatables and a hayride and a petting zoo and games. Now the kids are way sugared up and overtired and ready for bed (ok I'm ready for bed).



Rosie's new friends.

Jamie posed with the Ckick fil A cows and got free coupons 

Betsy loved the inflatables



Sydney was super happy!

Happy Halloween!

Yea, I know Halloween is tomorrow. But here in the bible belt we would never ever dream of celebrating a pagan holiday and mocking evil on Sunday.  However it is perfectly acceptable to do it on Saturday as long as we wash off the fake blood before we get dressed up on Sunday morning.

Mahaley had a party to go to so for the first year ever she did not join us:(

The other kids dressed up as a zombie (Jamie), a Japanese girl (Emma), a country music star (Leah), Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz (Betsy), a clown (Rosie). Ashley and Jace also went with us. They were a skeleton queen and a garden gnome ( who refused to wear his hat and beard). We met up with Adam, Niki, Sydney and Justin. Sydney was the cutest little pirate girl ever.

Betsy turned out to be a little con artist. At every house she ended up with more candy than the rest of the kids. She would wait until they gave her something and then look sadly into the bowl and say " I sure do like Kit-Kats" so of course they would give her more. Or sometimes she would respond to a compliment with " Thank you, I know I look cute, I'm being adorable today". Of course that was adorable so she really racked up on the candy!

Now we are looking forward to a week of tummy aches from all that candy. You know a long time ago when I cared more before I knew better I used to ration out my kids Halloween candy. I'd give them one or two pieces after they had finished their vegetables at dinner. Then I realized that with the amount they hauled in I would be giving out candy (and listening to the begging)  until Christmas, when they would get more candy, which would last until Valentines and so on and so on. Then I came up with my current brilliant strategy. I let them eat all they want, every day all day for three or four days and then I trash it all. No one throws up more than once and after a few days it's over and done with.

Up and coming country star!



Where's Toto?



Cutest pirate wench ever.

Very serious zombie.

Pretty and shy.....

Thankful Thursday

 Thursday is officially gone as I write this but I have a lot to be thankful for so:

I am thankful that when Wayne broke down on the interstate today he was only 40 miles from home, (he could have been one more exit up on a much more dangerous part of the highway with nowhere safe to pull off).

I am thankful that there was an auto parts store nearby with everything that he needed to fix his truck and doubly thankful that he knew how to fix it. (note to daughters always marry a man who can fix stuff)

I am thankful that the cost didn't quite completely empty out our bank account.

I am thankful that after spending all afternoon on the highway I got home just in time to get the kids ready to go to 4H.

I am thankful that I got home from 4H just in time to rush to the hospital as they took my sister in for emergency surgery.

I am thankful they got her appendix out before it ruptured.

I am thankful that so far none of the other kids have come down with the puking and pooping bug that her baby Jace has.

It was a really hard day and some of that certainly held a little sarcasm but I AM so truly grateful that my sweet sis Kim is going to be OK. I love you Kimmy. 
 

Halloween preview

The kids dressed up for a party at the library yesterday, Rosie is a Halloween clown, Betsy is Dorothy, Leah is a country singer, Emma is a Japanese girl and Jamie is too old to dress up for story time;). They had a lot of fun, Rosie LOVES story time, we always have to sit in the very front so she has room to get up and act along with the puppets. I must have the only kids in the world though who complain about having too much junk and not enough "real food" at a party!

Today was yucky and rainy so I tried to stay home and get busy on swapping out the kids summer clothes for winter clothes. I got all of the summer things put away but didn't really finish  getting out the winter stuff and washing it up, so now they have NO clothes in their drawers. I guess I'll either get really motivated or let them lay around in their pajamas.

Fun Sunday

After church I took the little kids to the fall arts and crafts fair. They were oh so very good! We had a great time. They painted and did sand art and played on the playground and ate junk and must have thanked me a dozen times for bringing them. Nothing like a little appreciation to make a mama happy.

Rosie was seriously in love with this funnel cake, she ate almost the entire thing.

Betsy was pretty happy with her huge bag of cotton candy.

First time Rosie ever rode a bug!

Very determined...

Yay, she made it to the top!

Pretty face painting

Jamie's not real thrilled with his, lol.

Mr. I Don't Know

There is a little person
Who lives inside our house
We don't know if it's a girl or boy
But it must be tiny as a mouse
It steals the baby's toy
And writes on the wall
It leaves the milk on the table
And shoes in the hall
No one is ever able
To say just who it was
All we can say is, that little foe
Must be Mr. I Don't Know. 


 The very hardest thing about having a lot of kids is that you can never nail down the culprit. " Who ate five pieces of cheese and left the wrappers in the fridge?" I Don't Know. " Who squeezed all of the toothpaste into the sink?" I Don't Know.  "Who put these game pieces into the washer?" I Don't Know. "Who wrote on the desk with red marker?" I Don't Know. I think they say that so if they get caught ( red handed) they can say " well I didn't know, I forgot I did it." These are all things that someone has done this week. My kids are smart enough to know that as long as no one snitches I have almost no chance of figuring out who did it. I have held full court inquisitions to get to the bottom of things but that rarely works. So for now we are really working on learning the value of honesty. I understand why no one ever confesses. After all we are really strict around here. The punishment would be terrible, they might even get...gasp  A STERN TALKING TO.

Flashback (warning: really gross)

I'm still dealing with consequences of feeding my kids cake, ice cream, brownies, chips, meatballs, potato salad, baked beans, BBQ and candy all day on Sunday. I just don't know WHAT I was thinking. Leah and Betsy's tummies are feeling better but Rosie has gone through about a diaper an hour all day. To be honest I'm a little relieved, at least no one is throwing up. I have an unreasonable fear of vomit. Crazy for someone in my line of work, right? Honestly I think I have post traumatic stress disorder. It may stem from the unfortunate peanut butter cup puke and poop episode of 2004.  I shudder just to think of it. What? Not familiar? Well, it happened shortly after my eye-foot uncoordinated self walked off the side of the basement stairs and broke my ankle. Emma and Leah woke up in the middle of the night vomiting ....and with severe diarrhea. We changed bedclothes, bathed kids, threw in a little Pepto, all good. An hour later repeat, an hour after that repeat again, and again. By 4 am, we had not one clean sheet or towel in the house but the kids were asleep. The next day they seemed fine. Which was good because hobbling over pukey cover with one crutch all night left me feeling worse than them. That night a complete repeat of the night before. I was thanking God I had washed up everything and vowing to take them in to the doctor at daylight. The next morning they were the picture of health, no fever, eating eggs and toast for breakfast. Which by the way I could not stomach because of the lingering odor of vomit (and worse) in the house. I really thought all was well. Two hours after bedtime I heard vomit splatter in the hall floor. I nearly wailed in despair. Nooo more, please make it stop. No sleep for days, pukey blankets, towels, sheets, clothes, carpets. If I had been more mobile I would have run away from home. As soon as the sun rose I called for a pediatricians appointment. I got my puke and poop covered kids in the bath and went to get some clean clothes out of the back of their closet (at this point all they had clean were fairy costumes and church clothes).Then I found it. A FOUR POUND bag of peanut butter cups. Almost completely empty. I confronted my evil, sadistic  sweet, clueless little girls. Had they been eating this every night. Why yes, they had been. Hiding in their closet, gorging themselves every night after lights out. And it never occurred to them that it might be making them feel just the teeniest bit sick.  So I've tried to get over it, really I have. But the smell of vomit does me in every time. Recently Rosie threw up for the first time. I let her eat a lot of corn for dinner. I mean a lot. Kids her age don't digest corn very well. Of course I didn't know this seeing as how I only have one or two kids . (See how I'm keeping myself completely innocent here). So in the middle of the night she pukes. It's in her hair , her clothes, her blankets, running down the side of her crib. I'm having serious peanut butter cup flashbacks. I strip her and carry her (dripping) to the tub. Put the clean kid in my bed and then clean up roughly 10 pounds of corn puke from the crib, the floor, the hallway, the tub. Throw the sheets and blankets and clothes into the washer, start it up, put the clean baby back to bed, put myself back to bed while congratulating said self on how well I handled it. Then morning comes. Clean up all of the green giant niblets that I missed and then open the washer. That's when I lost it . Not only does corn come out of the tummy in the same shape it went in, it also survives the wash, rinse and spin cycles. So yea, the bottom of  my washer was full of corn puke. I gotta tell you, CLEANING CORN PUKE OUT OF THE WASHER IS NOT IN MY CONTRACT OMIGOD ENOUGH ALREADY!  Off topic here but seriously wouldn't it be great if we got a contract. Then every so often you could have your agent renegotiate to get a better deal. Like including a no cleaning corn puke out of the washer clause. After considering how many cycles it might take to disintegrate corn I finally sucked it up and scooped it out, barehanded. I deserve a medal ....or maybe I just need PTSD therapy.

Birthdays!

Birthday party day!  Happy birthday Justin, Jace and Ashlee. I like parties. I like the way the house starts out clean. I like the noise, the people, the chaos. I don't really even mind restoring the house to its pre-party state. But oh how I hate how fast the birthdays keep comin' round. Stay little guys, just a while longer.

Justin 1994





 

Ashlee, 2005. Just look at all that hair!




Baby Jace, 1 week old



Ashlee and Jace



I'm tired

Up early
Bowling practice
Soccer game
Another soccer game
End of the season soccer party
Clean house
Make dinner
Shop for birthday party
Make three (yes 3) birthday cakes

In between, drop kids off, pick kids up, swap kids out, bring home some extra kids, change diapers, give kids bathes, put kids to bed.

Whew, I'm tired. Really, really tired.

Can I just mention that I love my baby. Not because she's the sweetest most precious thing ever (she is) but because she SLEEPS. She sleeps WELL. On a schedule. For a long time. She goes to bed at 8pm. She sleeps until 8:30 am. She loves her bed, sometimes she giggles when I put her there. She never wakes up at night.
Oh, if only the rest of them would get with the program.....

**************************************************************************************


This is what Rosie does while we bowl. Undresses. Why yes she is in her pajamas. Have I mentioned that bowling is really early in the morning. Don't judge me.

Havin' a mommy day

Remember all that stuff I wrote yesterday? Yes, I know I sounded a little smug. Don't worry I got my just rewards today.  Lesson learned:  never ever brag about how sweet and kind your kids are. It'll always bite ya in the a**.

a little praise

Today Rosie had speech . I encouraged her to show off her signs. She signed " more, please, help" and when I asked her to "show" Miss V her new sign (peanut butter) she got out of her chair and went to the pantry to find it. Too cute right. I gave her some on a spoon and she tried to share it with Miss V, who said she was cute and sweet and super smart. At soccer Betsy stopped during her game to give her friend Bri a high-five for making a goal. Bri's mom said Betsy was the kindest little girl she knew. Rosie played ball with another teammates little sister. The girls mom said Rosie was a good sharer. At Leah's game her friend asked me if Leah could come to her birthday party. She said Leah was the nicest kid on the team.While we were there Emma was talking to some girls at the concession stand. When I went up later to get some napkins one of the little girls asked me if Emma was my daughter. She said Emma had a great sense of humor. You know what, they are cute and sweet and smart and kind and good sharers and nice and funny. All of that praise felt like a big ol pat on the back to their Mama.  





Funny things kids say:

Leah says that if  horse are a herd and birds are a flock
then a bunch of kids is a riot, 
 "but the funny kind, not like the crazy kind that smashes things and steals stuff"

pray for me

Mahaley got her learners license today. Yay for her. She's thrilled. Me, not so much. Don't get me wrong, I'm really happy for her. I mean this is an important milestone in a teenagers life, her first real taste of adult responsibility and freedom..blah..blah..blah. What I'm really thinking is "what idiot thought it was a good idea to put a little kid in charge of a hunk of metal going 50 miles an hour,"and "holy crap, I have to teach her to drive?"   So seriously, pray for me.



Hey Mom, when do I get to drive?

Not for a really, really long time baby (I hope).

one year ago

We were here. Children's Hospital.



getting ready for surgery






this morphine's good stuff, mom!

Rosie's surgery went well that day and it wasn't as long or invasive as her jaw distraction surgery but it was still a really difficult day. She was in so much pain afterwards. The next week was one I would like to forget.
Despite all of that we are glad that her repairs were done so early. She just had her one year post-op and it looks like she won't need any more palate repairs, Yay!



Madison Rose October 2010



Sad Mama

Dixie, 15 years old

Why does this make me so sad?

Dixie, 4 years old

Because now this cute little four year old only lives in memories and photos.

Don't get me wrong, I love my beautiful, bossy, opinionated, determined, smart, wonderful 15 year old with all of my heart ; but oh how I miss my beautiful, bossy, opinionated, determined, smart 4 year old:(

I took Dixie for her yearly checkup last month. She has stopped growing. Nothing wrong with that, it's completely normal she's just reached her adult size. I almost cried. I wanted to say " stopped growing! but..but.. I'm not done raising her." I know in reality I have lots left to do, she's going to need her Mom for her whole life maybe the most in these hard teenage years. In my heart though I feel like someone has stolen away my baby.

The key to happiness

 is a new stripey shirt, sesame chicken and a blue slushie. At least for Leah it is! An evening alone with Mama might also have something to do with it.

$68.72

Sixty eight dollars and seventy two cents. That's what I spent today on.......socks. Seriously, is that a lot? It seems like a lot to me. I really didn't have a choice though, somehow over the summer most of our socks have mysteriously disappeared. And now that the temperature has dropped from about 90 to 60 in a week we had a lot of complaining going on over cold toes.

                                                          

Happy Feet!

She talks!

Well sort of.

 Rosie had speech therapy today. While we were at the grocery store before her session she said "catch me". That's her first ever sentence!  While her therapist was here Rosie said water (wa-wa) for the first time. She also signed "more please". That's really great because even if she can't say a word or (just refuses to) we can still make her sign to get something she wants. It's supposed to help her understand that she has to ask for things and can't just scream and point. The problem is she will sign for the therapist and even for her sisters but not for me. Apparently I'm just supposed to obey all of her unspoken commands. ( I get that a lot around here, sigh...)

Rosie, 18 months

Fall Treats

Today I sent the kids out to gather up the last of our apples. Our poor trees didn't do so great this year. Maybe they're getting old, how long do apple trees live anyway?

 Then we made these. Caramel apples and pecan brittle. Yum!

Sounds lovely doesn't it. Unless you know that  1) hot caramel really, really burns.  2) I cannot control my language when I've been burned by hot caramel  3) pecan brittle really, really sticks to the pan.



Yes, this is me. With a spatula, a knife and a hammer (no kidding, it really really sticks).



Got Sippies?

Well we do. Lots and lots and lots of sippy cups. Why do we have so many? I don't know. I think my sippy obsession started when we were trying to get Rosie to drink from a cup. Because of her cleft she didn't have any suction so I tried lots of different cups to find one she could drink from. And then after her surgery I was trying to get her to learn to use a straw so I started buying lots of cups with straws. Now I can't seem to stop, whenever I see a cute sippy I just want to buy it. Is that strange? Of course my husband has an addiction to office supplies and stationary so maybe I'm not the oddest one in this family.

  

Saturday

 Busy day today. Jamie had bowling (very early in the morning). He bowled 210. Not bad for a kid just starting. And he got two strikes. Way to go Jamie! Leah and Beth had back to back soccer games. Both teams won. Yay girls!

 In the evening I took my poor sister to the ER. She had a terrible headache and really high blood pressure. They say she has a post Lumbar Puncture headache but there wasn't really anything they could do to stop it.
We hope you feel better soon Aunt Kim.

Leah's really going after the ball. GO LEAH!

Betsy's excited before the game even starts!

Soccer is exhausting. Whew......

                                                     

                                                          Betsy's getting the hang of it.

Library Day

Today we went to the library and then picked up the kids free pizzas and took them to the park. Note to homeschooling moms, if you go to the book it program they will send you a reading incentive kit with free personal pan pizza coupons! It was a great day to be at the park, cool, sunny, breezy. I love, love, love fall weather. The last time we went it was so hot that all of the equipment was scorching and after the kids stood around looking longingly at the slides for awhile we went home. But today was fantastic, great books, great pizza, ice cream from the ice-cream truck, lots of playtime. Doesn't it sound like the perfect homeschooling day? I will say though that we have a love-hate relationship with the library. We love them they hate us. We're loud, we take up all of the computer stations, we always need help finding the books we need even when they are right there on the shelf, we put books on hold and then never ever pick them up, we neglect to bring back books that other people have put on hold. As a matter of fact our books are always late despite the librarian (god bless her patient soul) printing out a list of our due back books and highlighting the due date. We put it on our calender but never quite seem to make it in on that day or the next or the next. You get the idea. I half expect to find a photo of myself at the checkout desk, WARNING DO NOT LET THIS WOMAN CHECK OUT ANY MORE BOOKS. For months after I read the story of a woman who was arrested for not returning a book  I tensed up every time a police car drove past our house. We are trying to do better but I'm still waiting impatiently for amnesty day. That's a day when you can erase fines by bringing in canned food or toys to donate. It's amazing what a guilty library patron will do to get back in her librarian's good graces.

 On a sadder note our little dog Freddie was killed. We think he got hit by a car or by a mowing machine working in our area. Freddie was a member of our family for 8 years, we're gonna miss you little guy.

 I'll leave you with a funny Cute Kid Saying:  Betsy was talking about the "bugs" in her mouth. Mahaley explained that they are called taste BUDS not bugs. Betsy thought about it for a minute and then  "Oh, I know why they're called buds, because they always hang out together and they like the same stuff !"

Books we're reading:

   Mom-  Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 
               Watership Down - Richard Adams
               The Dome - Stephen King
                Being - -Kevin Brooks 
( I like to start more than one book at a time)

Mahaley-  Liar - Justine Larbalestier

Jamie-  Animorph series - Katherine Applegate
            
Emma- Daniel  X series - James Patterson

Leah- The Young Soccer Player - Gary Lineker
            Dexters Lab-Magnets - Anna Capeci

Betsy- Two way To Count To Ten - Ruby Dee
            What Can It Be - Stephen White