Happy Birthday Hubby!

To my wonderful husband on his birthday. I hope you enjoy your special birthday this year. I am horribly guilty of not doing much for your birthdays, so this year I have planned a whole day for you to enjoy. And I really put my brain to work for you making sure you received some presents I think you will be excited about.

I love you and hope you have a wonderful birthday! (I am bribing the kids so that we have a minimal fighting day.)

Shane can spell

I was pretty impressed with Shane tonight. He was pretty impressed with himself too and told me to get the video camera so he could do it for the camera. I did not, I think something would have been lost in the recreation.

So tonight we received our thank you card from Sandra for Bree's birthday. Saint Sandra to be technical because Bree's birthday was yesterday, I gave her the gift a few days before, and I received the thank you card by mail within 3 days. Seriously, I think Sandra is just trying to make the rest of us look bad, I officially remove her Saint title. I still have unwritten thank you cards from each of my kids last 2 or 3 birthdays. So obviously they will never get done. I digress, Sandra knows I love her and she is my hero, I hope to be just like her one day. So with the card is a picture of Bree, very adorable. Shane was excited to see Bree's picture and insisted we hang it on the frig with the letter B magnet. He then said I will spell her name. So over I walk to the frig to see Bree's picture attached with the letters, B R E. The letter kit only comes with one of each letter, though I know Shane did not know it was actually Bree. So I told him the correct spelling of her name, but that he did fabulous.

Shane can sound out words and knows many sight words, but this was the first time he created the spelling of a word that he could not have learned at school. He came up with it on his own. I am a proud momma.

Poopy Cereal

Some of you may know this cereal as Cracklin' Oat Bran, but not in our house. Today I bought this at the store for the kids. It is definitely a fave in this house. Anyway, with much fanfare I pulled it from the bag and excitedly said, "Look what I bought." Myann's eyes lit up and yelled, "Yea! Poopy Cereal!" I had a good laugh.

So I guess you need the back story. I love this cereal and I got my love for it from my dad. Well one time I was telling my dad that I was eating a lot of it and he said, "Be careful it will make you poop a lot." When Shane was eating a lot and insisting on more, I told him, "Popi said it will make you poop a lot." So we limit the amount he can have. When Shane asks for the cereal he says, "I want O's, you know, the ones that make Popi poop a lot." Then Myann picked up on it. I think she liked the reaction Shane's comment always gets from me, the giggles I can not hold back. So now she always proclaims that she wants the cereal that makes Popi poop. Well today it took on a whole new name - Poopy cereal. I doubt Kelloggs will be using this information in their marketing anytime soon.

For the record, one serving contains 6g of fiber and we do limit consumption in this house because my dad was right.

Weary

This morning I was weary. I have been trying to get up earlier to work out. So I set my alarm for 5:30 am to work out BEFORE the kids woke up. How foolish of me since the kids have been consistently waking up at 5:30 am for weeks now. But I somehow thought that if I set the alarm, they would sleep in and I would get a few minutes of "me" time to exercise. So when I heard them up at 5:30, I decided to stay in bed, because I knew exercise would not happen. Brian happened to still be home since he was packing for his work trip. I told him that I did not want to get out of bed to face "them". "They" outnumbered me and I just could not do it. My sweetheart of a husband climbed in to bed with me and said "I will miss you". Implying, he understood because he was going to miss me, but not the kids. Not a true statement, because he always misses the kids, but I appreciated his empathy for me rather than his judgment. In the past he has had moments of judgment, we both have. He says, oh it must be hard staying at home and not working. And I have serious jealousy of his work trips where he gets to eat out, not clean, and sleep in a hotel room uninterrupted by "Wipe my butt, I peed, change my pjs, I had a bad dream, Shane snuck candy...". But this morning, he actually seemed to feel sorry for me, and I really needed that. And he whispered the most wonderful thing, "I made coffee." I love that man.

And the rest of the day was good from that moment on. I was incredibly productive, I worked out twice, and I had Tina to help with dinner and putting the kids to bed (so I could work out).

Seriously, what do I do with this?

I am a self proclaimed pack rat. I keep it all. Almost every picture or art project the kids have ever made at home or school is packed in their storage container. Said containers are busting at the seams. However, they came home from art class with these lovely creations. Seriously, what do I do with these? They will not fit in a storage container at least not while protecting the integrity of the design, by that I mean the hundreds of toothpicks that would get broken. They can't even be displayed in their rooms because they are potentially fatal, so I need to keep an eye on them. So for now they are sitting on the kitchen table.

Shane's clay molded snake with lots of shooting spines



Myann didn't really name hers. Though it slightly resembles her personality, ok, that was a low blow for a mom to make. The teacher thought porcupine was appropriate, I thought puffer fish.



My only solution is to take the pictures, post them to the blog for posterity and then throw them in the trash as soon as the kids seem to have forgotten about them or when I can no longer handle the sight of them.

Happy Valentine's Day

Anders in the tub with red bath water, of course red, it was Valentine's Day.

Not a very exciting day around here. Brian and I are VERY anti-Valentine's Day and I only even acknowledge it for the sake of the kids. I got the kids a couple of books and candy, but no cards for them or Brian. I did make pink pancakes, I was in a mood and did make cookies with chocolate hearts. Now that I think about it, I think I did the most Valentine's stuff ever this year, but again, all for the kids. Poor Brian. However, Brian was sweet today, as this is the 11 year anniversary of when we met on an airplane, so we talked about that. But no gifts or fanfare, just thankful that a plane trip brought us together. Because as I have said before, nothing short of being forced to sit next to each other for 3 hours would have forged a connection.

We did celebrate the puppies' birthday as well. It was actually yesterday, but we went to a movie and then had friends over, so we celebrated a day late. I don't think Katie and Maddox were offended. So today I baked a "cake" for the puppies, complete with "icing". Too lazy to post pics tonight, but I will do it tomorrow. They were a little unsure at first, but quickly got on board and ate up. As with any siblings, they had to taste each others, just to make sure the other did not get something better. We also made sure that they had equal portions, though they each ate half of each plate. Oh children, species does not matter, they are all the same. Again, Brian asked, "Is this all for the puppies or for our kids?" My response, "For the puppies." Brian, "You know they have no idea it is their birthday." Me...so I had no comeback. But now in thinking, neither do any of our kids at this point. Ok, so maybe Shane would realize if we missed his birthday, but Myann was talking today about her birthday as if it were next week. See, no clue. But yes, I partly did the birthday thing for the kids, because I knew they would think it was fun. But I also did it for the puppies. Brian does not let us feed the dogs anything but dog food. Ok, so they get a lot out of Anders' high chair, but he is vehemently against feeding dogs people food. I know, it is healthier, but I like giving special treats from time to time, to myself, the kids, the dogs...I'm a softy. Anyway, I thought it was a good excuse to give the dogs some good treats, and it worked, not a word from Brian about it being unhealthy. BTW, the "cake" was decent. Brian tricked me into trying a bite.

Patiently waiting for their cake


This is a reminder to myself. Tonight at bedtime, Shane requested for his birthday a chocolate cake with strawberry icing and covered with chocolate covered strawberries. Oh how it makes a momma proud. Sandra, I think he got the idea from your dessert Saturday, he LOVED the chocolate covered strawberries. I am quite excited, because I believe that is a cake I can make myself. No need for a bakery unless he requests a superhero cake like last year.

Happy Valentine's Day! Even though I think it is a fake holiday, the 14th changed my life, and for that I am forever thankful.

This blogger read my mind

I found this post here http://coalcreekfarm.com/page/4/

She is a mom of 4, 3 of which are boys. I am not one to read blogs of people I do not know, but I stumbled across hers and I think it was meant to be. I found this post which was almost identical to what has been going through my mind.

When I was potty training you boys did I hold up a picture of a fire hose and say, “Like this…all over the bathroom, okay?”
OMG, I was just going to post asking for help on how to get your child to pee in the potty. Shane manages to pee down the back of the toilet...HOW????? I had never cleaned the BACK of the toilet until Shane became potty trained.

When I taught you to put your clothes away did I say, “The folded clothes go back in the dirty hamper and the dirty underwear go everywhere?”
Mine actually try on clothes and decide not to wear them and throw them in the dirty clothes.


When I showed you how to put the dishes away did I hide all the utensils in various drawers around the kitchen and stick some in the dog food bin?
So we are not there yet. But, I frequently find dirty spoons in with clean utensils. Apparently they think it is okay to put a sucked on spoon back in the drawer.

Have I ever said it was okay to not clean up after yourself? Yes, I must have said that, so often in fact that you are completely dedicated to NEVER cleaning up after yourself.
Shane actually told me the other day that cleaning up is so exhausting. I guess they think that I find it energizing.

Is there a single puzzle or game in our house that has all its pieces? No, because I taught you to lose them, break them and scatter them like rose petals in the yard.
On our to do list is to go through all the puzzles and box up ones that are missing pieces. I say box up because I can not throw a puzzle a way, because I always have a dream that we will find the missing puzzle piece hiding place, just like I never throw away odd socks in hopes of finding the match one day. I know you are shuddering at the thought right now Sandra.

Who can find their shoes? Nobody…I taught you well.
This is why we are late everywhere we go.

Who has their coat and mittens? Nobody…I’m a success!
This would be the other reason we are late all the time during winter.

Who put their toothbrush on the counter and spit blobs of toothpaste in the sink? My children…I’m so proud!
Actually Brian is worse than the kids when it comes to this.

Who is hungry the minute I put the last dish back in the refrigerator? Okay… that’s me and I’ve taught you all that too.
My kids are always hungry the minute the car ignition comes on. It's like pavlov's dogs - car starts and I will inevitably hear, "Mom, I'm hungry". Don't mind the fact that I just told them 10 minutes before to finish breakfast because we are leaving.

How much longer are you all going to live in this house with me? Don’t answer that.
I won't have to worry about this one, because my kids will have the same rule as I did, you're 18, see ya. I actually was young when I graduated high school, so I was told see ya at 17. I was allowed to move home for 6 weeks after college while I waited to find out where my job was going to train me. I think my mom may have let me live with her a bit longer if I did not find a job, but the uncertainty definitely encouraged me to start my job hunt 6 months before I even graduated.