Random thoughts of the day;

*I told my 3 yr old he'd get a certain special toy if he was successful using the bathroom...he was doing great and I was happy so I gave him the toy early as it was Christmas and all. BIG mistake, we're losing ground now. UGH!

*I took down the Christmas tree today, alone. Why is putting up the tree so much more exciting?

*I really like the movie Sweet Home Alabama. I've probably seen it a hundred times and I still watch it again. Not really sure why.

*I love pizza so much that for Christmas my DH got me a gift certificate to Dominos. (which says something as he doesn't really like pizza)
We have gotten completely out of any routine since way before we moved...we need it again desperately!

*Lately we have been playing a lot of dice and card games I played as a kid, it's bringing back fun memories. (and improving my kids' counting, number recognition and addition skills...BONUS!)

*I started using cloth diapers about a month ago. It's alright and seems like the right thing for now. Though it just seems like one more step we've taken towards "extreme freaky".

*I don't feel "extreme" I just feel normal.

*I ordered new glasses (finally) can't wait to get them next week!

*My camera is broken, after a year and a half. Not a long life. My dh thinks we should not buy anything electronic as it always gets broken. He may be right.

*It's sunny and 19* here, my kids are bundled up and outside playing frisbee.

'Til next year...

Here's where I'm going to brag about my husband...

When we moved here we only brought one vehicle with us. We prayed the whole way here that it would actually make it and we wouldn't be left stranded. It did make it, but about two weeks ago it died. (My hubs thinks it's fixable but will take some tinkering). Anyway, about 3 days before that van died we had purchased a second van that Ian was going to use to drive to work. It's a conversion van and has seats for a driver, front passenger, two bucket seats and a bench in the rear that seats 3. Basically, it'll fit him & I and 5 kids. Not quite enough room for all of us. So what does my super duper handy guy do??? He moved the bench forward and added a bench from the other van. Now it seats him, me and 9 kids :)



The added seat faces the back of the van as seen here:



In this picture you can kinda see the two bucket seats and one forward facing bench, the rear facing one is directly behind it.

Now we once again have a van that will hold us all. Thanks Ian, you are awesome!!

Random shots

I wonder how many completely random pictures would still be considered interesting?

Let's start off with this:
This yummy snack is quite addictive! Pretzels, popcorn, and Fritos covered in white chocolate.


Then there's this picture of the side of the house. I'm not sure if you can tell but that's about 1/2 and inch of ice. Not on the ground, but stuck to the side of the house. Thanks to lots of freezing rain and high winds.

This is how I am most days. No shoes just socks walking around the house. The other day it wasn't until dinner time that I realized my sock was inside out.

This is my daughter, I think she's pretty great!

This is Josiah, he's about to turn two and well, this sad face is what he's been like a lot lately. Poor guy's got a cold :(

Here is our tree.

Kids playing in the snow....

And all the kids in front of the tree. Too bad they never all look at the same time. ;P

And the winner is....

Thank you all for commenting and entering in my little contest. It was fun to read all the family traditions you have!

I put all the names on little pieces of paper and my daughter reached in and picked out:

Michelle from My Five Little Ducks

Congrats!!

Now, I'm off to do some laundry before the pile gets too out of control :P

My 100th post on Blogspot & a Contest!!

Today I'm typing out the 100th post since moving over here to blogspot!

I thought I could give you 100 pictures to enjoy, but that would just be LONG and probably pretty annoying.

I thought I could give away 100 mismatched socks, (because I know I do have those!) but everyone probably already has their own pile.

I thought I could give you 100 random things about me, but I'm just not that interesting.

Then I thought, hey I have this $30 gift card to Old Navy...why not have a contest?

So if you want to celebrate with me, leave me a comment and tell me about a favorite Christmas tradition you have...

Then Saturday night (Dec. 20th) I'll put all the names in a bowl and have one of my kids pick one out.

If you'd like to be entered twice you could link from your blog too! :)

Sick week

The past week has been spent dealing with sickness. Two of our kids had the flu and one a fever and an earache. Mild sickness and one child at a time, I do have that to be thankful for. It breaks my heart though to see my kids sick. Yesterday my 3 year old ball of fire wanted to do nothing but sleep and lay around. He'd be up for a bit, cuddle on my lap and then say, "I think I need to sleep now." and he'd walk off to bed. It made me want to cry, the poor guy. Daddy got to be the hero though, he stopped and got Tylenol on his way home from work. In about 30 minutes the little guy was up playing tag with the rest of them. :)

It's amazing what a little bit of medicine will do.

I do like the cuddles though. I just wish he'd sit still like that when he's not feeling icky.

We've yet to see if it's going to go around the whole household, hopefully it won't.

On another note, I'm supposed to be going to this cookie exchange thing later this week. It's going to be my first introduction to a bunch of other home school moms here...anyone have a great cookie recipe that would just make me look impressive??

This and That

My son brought me this picture earlier today and said, "Look Mom, it's Larryboy's new arch enemy!" I thought it was pretty clever....

Any thoughts on what to name him? We were thinking something along the lines of The Trouble Corn only in spanish like Le Maiz Problema or something.

And on a completely different note...look who's 7 months old and finally sitting up on his own!

The things you find...

The house we moved into didn't come with a washer and dryer set, so first thing after we moved in we bought a used pair. The thing about buying used is that it's always a bit of a risk as to whether the things will actually work or not. They got put into the laundry room and hooked up and I threw in the first load. I stayed around and watched the washer....seemed to work just fine. Phew! Then I transferred the clothes to the dryer. I waited a bit then opened it and the clothes seemed warm so I turned it on for longer and walked away. I checked about an hour later. What did I find? Hot wet clothes. I thought well, I'll give it more time. Another hour and still the same. Bummer. We tossed around ideas as to what the problem could be. I even called a repair guy to ask questions. He said to check the vent, maybe it's clogged. Alrighty, I can do that.

I removed the foil hose thing and looked into the wall side of the vent. It looked like a big lump of lint. Yeah! I found the problem. So I went and got out the vacuum and stuck the hose down and the lint thing stuck to the end. I pulled it out and ....


it wasn't a lint ball....

it was a dead bird!

Ewww!!!

So, I put that in the trash and stuck the hose down the vent again. (Yep, I'm crazy I know)

I proceeded to find THREE more dead birds.

At this point I was officially freaked and grossed out so I called the landlord. They called a repair guy and he came out. He used a big long wand thing and cleaned out the whole vent. He found one MORE dead bird! Now at least I know it's clean and clear.

But can you believe there were 5??? Any guesses how that happened?

I am happy now as the clothes are drying properly :)

Our House

I want to give you a little tour, so first we'll start with the outside. Here's the front of the house...

This is the deck and back view.

The kitchen and dining area

The master bedroom (including a baby on the bed)

One of the bedrooms is for the two girls and the baby,

and the last bedroom is for the four boys. One of the bunkbeds is finished and shown here and one is still in the garage waiting for me to apply stain. So the toddlers are in the playpen and one is still sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor. :(

Downstairs there is a family room,

and the other half will be our school room.

I think it suits us well.

Some of the rooms are a bit empty looking still, keep in mind we didn't bring much. Almost all of the furniture is stuff we've acquired since we got here.

The Move

It's been a LONG week. So much has happened that I think it would be easiest to just give you a few highlights with a promise of lots of pictures to come.

1. We made it from Washington to Illinois in 36 hours flat. The kids did awesome and slept 2/3 of the time. Night driving is by far the best way to travel!
2. All we brought with us was our van and a uhaul trailer (5ft x 8ft) with essentials.
3. The rental house is nice but has proven to have some quirks...I'll blog about those later.
4. There has been a lot of furniture building. Two benches for the kitchen table, a desk, three sets of bunk beds, a queen size bed platform and a huge cabinet for homeschool supplies. The bunkbeds are super cool, instead of mattresses the kids are getting hammocks. :)
5. Ian and I got to go on one last date night before our friend/babysitter travels on to Pennsylvania. The Olive Garden has great food. Mmmm.
6. The second day here we saw snowflakes, the kids are really hoping to see more.
7. Noah ate his first solid food (well, mushy food to be exact) today. He gobbled it up nicely.

And do you want to know the best thing by far?

We haven't had to ride on one single ferry boat since we left Washington!!! (sorry Vashon folk, but it's the truth)

We're Leaving....

In a big van...don't know when I'll have the net again....(sing it to yourself with the jet plane tune, you know you want to)

We pared down, WAY down. All of our belongings fit inside our van and a 5x8 Uhaul trailer.

We are all packed up and are heading out in the morning. We'll be traveling down to see some super wonderful people tomorrow before heading out for the long leg of our journey.

Prayers for our sanity and safety would be much appreciated!

Husband Tag

Emily had this tag and it just seems like the perfect post for today to get my mind off of the stressful things for a few moments. I think today will be my last post before next week when we will (hopefully) be in our new place!!

Husband Tag...this is a new twist!

1. He's sitting in front of the TV, what is on the screen? Probably the Office or a World War II documentary

2. You're out to eat; what kind of dressing does he get on his salad? Ranch

3. What's one food he doesn't like? Spaghetti and pretty much any other tomato sauce based food pizza included (major bummer)

4. You go out to the bar. What does he order? A beer. In a nice frosty mug.

5. Where did he go to high school? Macomb, Il (when he went hehe)

6. What size shoe does he wear? 13

7. If he was to collect anything, what would it be? Anything? Hmmm, I'm gonna guess guns?

8. What is his favorite type of sandwich? Sandwiches are overrated. (He'd say)

9. What would he eat every day if he could? Shrimp or popcorn. Or popcorn shrimp.

10. What is his favorite cereal? Almond Honey Bunches of Oats?? That's a total guess. I really don't know.

11. What would he never wear? Speedos. HAHAHA!

12. What is his favorite sports team? None. Sports aren't something he's in to really.

13. Who will he vote for? Alan Keys.

14. Who is his best friend? Me, I think he kinda likes me too...shh don't tell k?

15. What is something you do that he wishes you wouldn't do? Spend too much time reading blogs :(

16. How many states has he lived in? 2. Washington and Illinois...wait make that 3 he spend 2 months in Florida as an infant.

17. What is his heritage? French?

18. You bake him a cake for his birthday; what would it be? Cheesecake.

19. Did he play sports in high school? Football.

20. What could he spend hours doing? Talking....he has great stories and lots of opinions.

21. What's something cool about him? He has an awesome card trick.

Your turn.

The final 9 days

Everything in my life right now is focused on or around us moving. I think that we are pretty much on schedule with what we've accomplished so far. Our entire upstairs is empty as is our basement. Now there's just a small amount on the main level and a few pieces of furniture....then the deep cleaning *sigh* that's not my favorite part. Mostly because it's hard to clean and then keep it clean a couple of days with all of us still living and eating here. Putting all of it off until the last minute just isn't feasible either though. It's a dilemma I tell ya.

Anywho, I'm going to be scarce around here another week or so...but soon I'll be posting pics of our trip and our new place :)

Halloween Fun

We decided to take a break from the packing and go get us some candy :)

As I posted about here, we chose a theme of Snow White and the seven dwarfs.


From left to right we have: Sneezy, Doc, Grumpy, Bashful
Happy & Dopey in front and the baby got to be Sleepy.


I forgot the hat for the littlest one but I think most people got the idea. ;)

Now I'm off to find some chocolate...

My crazy life

I feel like my life is in a bit of a whirlwind right now.

For those of you who don't know already...

We're moving to ILLINOIS!

In 3 weeks.

My life these days is consisting of sorting, packing, selling, carting off, giving away and all the other stuff like being mom, laundry, home schooling....Throw in some visiting with friends before we leave and that about sums it up.

We'll find normal again soon enough, right?

Abram

Happy Birthday to my 3 year old!!
This guy brings me so much happiness, he makes me laugh and keeps us entertained (and on our toes). He loves to jump, doesn't have much fear (except of dogs), wrestles his big brothers as if he doesn't know there is a size difference, and he likes to talk. Right now I think his favorite word is actually and he's so cute when he says it. :)

Cider time

There are still quite a large amount of apples around here and this fall weather has made it perfect for making cider!! The kids all had the best time and boy did they work hard. They were picking apples, washing them, feeding them into the press, pressing them, and pouring the cider over the cheesecloth to strain it into jugs. I think they all learned a lot. There was the tractor rides, climbing trees....well all of it really was just a blast!

Mmmm, yummy stuff!

Two down...how many to go?

After Tuesday's episode of sickness I was not sure how yesterday was going to go and it was my off island shopping trip day. The kids woke up and no one appeared sick and thankfully the day did go without anyone getting sick. I began to assume that he got sick (it was my 1 year old) because of drinking to much fresh cider. We all know that assuming something just speaks of trouble right? Well, as of this morning I now have a second sick child (5 yr. old). So instead of the kids going to their playdate today and Awana's tonight we'll all be staying put here.

Onto a different topic...

Why oh why do strangers feel the need to be rude?

We were finishing up at Costco yesterday, I was putting kids and groceries into our van. I asked my 7 yr old to return the cart for me. The cart return place (what do you call it?) was directly across from the back of our van. I continued to unload food and he pushed it there. I looked up and he had not paid attention well and stepped in front of a car. The lady stopped in plenty of time and I watched him wave to her and apologize, I made eye contact with her and apologized for him too and she drove away. No big deal. Then this guy drives up rolls his window down and in a very condescending tone says, "You know, you let him go over there and he almost got ran over by a car."

Really? Like, wow I had no idea! Errr!!!

I said, "sorry" and he drove away. Why I said that I'm not sure but I was just flustered. Why did he feel the need to stop? and comment? He was not trying to be helpful, he was just rude and I couldn't shake it off. It bugged me, it still bugs me.

I think part of the reason that it bothered me so much is that it wasn't just an irresponsible kid type mistake. I've returned carts and turned around in front of cars before, so what he did was something I think most people have done on occasion. And I felt like this guy was picking on something that was an innocent mistake.

Okay, I'm done now. :o)

Throwing up stinks

and I don't mean in a "oh man what a bummer" kind of way.

It stinks literally.

I'm praying it's not going to go through the whole household. One is enough.

My Josiah - I love him

He's cute and fierce...watch out! :)

Skillz, he thinks I got 'em

My husband has been thinking about buying a storage type trailer to pull behind our van. He found one yesterday on Craigslist that said he might consider trades. That made us think, well we've got lots of things maybe we could make some sort of deal. So, my hubby turns to me and says,

"You should call him, you're good at that sort of stuff."

Huh?

What?

He thought of swapping, haggling, bartering and then thought, yeah she's good at that.

I guess I have this skill I didn't know about.

So do tell...what kind of skills do you have that would make people say, "call her she's good at that"???

Blogging is quiet

Yesterday I was hoping to participate in the 'I see what you're saying' video posting (Gayle made it look so fun!). Unfortunately though I have loud kids :) Each time I attempted a video I would get about 10 seconds into taping and in the background I'd hear "MOOOOMM!"

I can't stand to hear myself talk anyway so maybe it's for the best.

Instead a still picture will have to do.

Problem of the day

Today we were at our local home school co-op. The kids are divided up into 3 groups and rotate through 3 stations. In the process of dividing the groups one of my sons was split up away from his buddy. Not his only buddy just the one he wanted to be around today. About halfway through our first station he comes walking into the other room and says the leader told him to switch and now join this group (the one with the buddy). I find out later that he was complaining and the leader said he was free to join the other group. HUMPH!

He has friends in both groups and I'm not set on which group he should be in, but I felt that his behavior was far less than adequate and probably hurt the feelings of the boy in the group he left (there was only one other boy, the rest were girls).

As much as I want him to understand how that other boy felt I don't think I'm getting through to him. He's agreed that next time he'll stay with the first group, so I don't think this is a direct disobedience of any sort. He's just not being compassionate and I don't know how to guide him to that point.

Random stuff about me

Gayle over at Grace4gayle tagged me (in a very clever way) with this meme and imitation is the best form of flattery, right? So, I'm going to completely steal her idea. Can you tell by these random things which blogs I read?

So here we go....

If I ever found a green bean with a face like that I'd auction it off on E-bay.

The thought of having twins scares me and I don't know what would be harder, newborn twins or twins who just turned one and started to walk!

If we were #5 on the adoption list I'd be super excited!!!

If my belly looked that cute while I was pregnant I would definitely allow people to take my picture while I was pouring cereal.

I believe that the Lord wants us as wives to submit to our husbands no matter who we are or where we live, be it in the U.S. or A-U-S-T-R-A-I-L-I-A.

I wish I was clever enough to be able to feed my family for $40-$60 a week. (yes, I'm tagging you back. Now you're tagged for your other blog!)

So, do you read any of the same blogs that I do? If you're confused go ahead and click through the links on my sidebar, there are some great blogs over there!!

If you are one of the blogs I listed then TAG you are it!

The "rules" of the game are as follows:

1. Post the rules on your blog

2. Write 6 random things about yourself

3. Tag 6 people at the end of your post

4. If you're tagged, DO IT and pass on the tag

My kids are climbing the walls!

This is now one of our kids' favorite things to do. I seem to remember Emily posting about her daughter doing this so I'm going to blame her everytime I walk down my hall and see dirty walls :) Okay?

Halloween

I know that Halloween is over a month away and it's a touchy subject...but I'm gonna mention it anyway. We have allowed our kids to dress up and this year I actually want to plan something ahead of time. That way I won't be rushing around the day before! A friend made a suggestion and I think I just may do it. I have 7 kids (just in case you didn't know) so I think we are going to go as:

Clever, no?

What is it with guys?

Non writers teaching writing?

I don't think of myself as much of a writer. I come here and jot down some of my thoughts but it doesn't make me a writer. When I was younger and in school I always had a hard time when the teacher assigned papers. I could complete a one or two page paper no problem, but expand that to a 3-5 paper and I was stuck. So, now I find myself in the teachers position. How do I develop writing skills in my kids? How do I get them to like to write? I've ordered a writing curriculum


and am waiting for it to arrive. Hopefully that will help.

In the mean time my daughter is working in her Wordly Wise book.


This book focuses on vocabulary and my daughter likes all of it except one part of the lessons. She likes the multiple choice, the fill in the blank and the crosswords. What happens when I open up to the page where you have to answer in complete sentences?

ATTITUDE. Bad, sulky, why oh why do I have to do this page. ATTITUDE.

So, please tell me, is there something I can do that might change her mind or is this simply a discipline area? I want her to like it, I want her to do well, but I don't want to have her working begrudgingly everyday.

The weirdest part of this though is that when you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up she says, "a writer".

Beef Stroganoff

Are you ready for some yummy comfort food???

Here's what you'll need:


cheap beef steak (cut in strips) or stir fry meat (already cut for you)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
garlic powder
1 cup sour cream
2 tsp. beef bouillon
mushrooms (the blue tub, or whole & you cut them up)
egg noodles
-or-
make your own:
2 cups flour
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1/3-1/2 cup water
roll out flat and cut in strips with pizza cutter and boil until they float :)

Here's what you do:

saute meat in frying pan with a couple shakes of garlic powder and the beef bouillon.
When the meat is browned add the mushrooms and soup, fry a little longer. Then add the sour cream and cooked noodles. Stir, serve and enjoy! (this is mighty good with some garlic bread)

If you want to lighten this up you could use fat free soup and sour cream.

Go find more yummy recipes over at Gayle's Recipe swap!!

Our school day

We've been at our new schedule for over a week now and I'm all ready to change it up. I have most of our school time in the morning before lunch. All I left for the afternoon was reading aloud and history/science (we're doing one or the other each day not both). What I'm finding out is that our morning goes great and we get a lot accomplished BUT by the time we're done with lunch I'm tired. I'm ready for kids to nap or play outside. I'm not ready to dive into the rest of our day. I think I may just switch up the free blocks of time and chores to right after lunch and push the rest of our school to about 3 pm. Or I could make lunch at 12:30 vs. 11:00 and get it all in before we eat. Just typing that out makes me think that's the way we'll go.

Ok, so enough rambling. Want to see a few pictures of our morning?