In the Middle of Life

Bullet points today.  I don't have time to write a "real" post and try to tie everything neatly together, but there are so many things I don't want to forget.  It might be messy, but here goes!

*Oliver loves horses!  He turns to the horse pages first in his "name the animal and make the animal noise" books, and goes "pppppppppppp" with his lips, because he doesn't care about the whinny, he is just fascinated that this creature can spit and not get in trouble for it.  He had started spitting when he got mad (spitting mad?  now I understand those why those words would be used together), and would get a swift swat on the rear in return.

*We have been looking at land/houses in the country.  Driving around on Sundays to faraway places like... Paola.  And Wellsville.  And Louisburg.  We would love to have more than 10 acres, and have even found one foreclosure property that has 40 acres and a house in our price range.  We have work to do on this house before it is ready to put on the market, but it is getting done!  The places we have seen are motivational (well, some of them are).

I love this house, because it is unique, and it feels really big... oh, who am I kidding?  It IS really big.  It is probably too big, and we have just filled (overfilled) it with stuff and are ready to move to a place with a simpler house that maybe only has 2 bathrooms instead of 4.  We love having 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a nice kitchen, a living room with a vaulted ceiling, a cozy family room with a fireplace and bookshelves (what we now call the school room, even though we do all of our schooling on the couch and at the dining room table), and a finished basement big enough and equipped to house renters... but really, there are 5 of us.  We don't NEED all of the stuff, the rooms, and the stress that comes along with it.

Mike loves to work with plants and seeds, and he'd love to have a greenhouse, and I would like to keep ducks and/or chickens, and possibly even have a cow for milk.  Just a little hobby farm, so that we can work on not being so wasteful (chickens eat scraps, and we have learned how to make compost, but our HOA won't allow that in our neighborhood... they also won't allow a clothesline!) and also so that we can provide for our own family without being so dependent on the grocery store for everything!  Self-sufficiency is all the rage these days with some people, but we don't want to just jump in unaware.  We are taking our time and going slowly...  It will take time, and there will be a lot of learning, and a huge lifestyle shift.  I am learning how to can so that I can stock up on fresh, local foods when they are in season and can them for winter.  So far I have only done beets at Mama G's house with her and my two lovely sisters-in-law and my niece.  It was fun, and also a lot of work, but we have beautiful jars of beets, and I would love to stock my pantry with more things like this.

*I am considering selling scrapbook kits!  I'll probably start with a shop on Etsy and a website, and build it from there.  I don't have details yet, but I'm working on a plan.  Eventually maybe I could help with a monthly budget amount like groceries or something, but at this point I'd be happy to take care of the yearly homeschool curriculum purchase.

*Mike has been working long hours, with many overnights and phone calls early and late.  It is hard on him and on me, but I am so thankful that he has a job and that they need him.

*I got to spend Saturday with my mom and sister!  We drove down to the Louisburg Cider Mill (SO many memories from going there every year while growing up), and got to take in all of the craft booths.  The line to buy cider and doughnuts was outrageously long, so we decided to go back some time during the week when it's not so busy to indulge in some warm, sweet, sugary cider doughnuts and cold, spicy-crisp apple cider.  I can't wait!

*School is going well this year.  The boys are way ahead in math and reading for the year, so I'm not worried at all about them in those areas!  We are working our way through the science astronomy book, and our history books we're reading aloud either during naptime, or (what usually happens) Mike reads to them before bed.  We are doing the Book It! program through Pizza Hut, and that really works to make sure I keep track of the books they have read by themselves.  Griffin reads a LOT of books.  His favorites are the Magic Tree House series, but he'll read just about anything.  He's really getting into chapter books, and it is not unusual for him to finish one off in a few days.  He takes every spare minute to curl up on the couch and read... when he's not playing outside, raking leaves, or building with Legos.  I love seeing him enjoy books so much!  Sammy is starting to read for enjoyment.  I have convinced him that he IS a good reader, and he has been going out on a limb and trying new books.  He wants to read them while we're at the library to make sure he'll like them before committing to checking them out and taking them home.  He's such a perfectionist!  Good and bad... I am trying to draw out the positives and help him overcome the negatives of feeling like everything he does has to be perfect.  He really seeks out approval from others, and there is a fine line between wanting affirmation and craving flattery, so I'm trying to figure out that balance, and make sure that my words of approval are for who he is, and for his character, rather than just for his accomplishments.  I know it is nice to have that pat on the back at the end of a hard school project, though.  Even if that project is just a page of handwriting.  Those can be daunting when you are 6!

*Oliver's words so far: Dada, Mama, Doggy (his first official word after Dada), Tickle (Kicka), Cracker (Cah-cah), Drink (Dizz), Moo (he has the cow noise down!), Hiss (he doesn't really like the snakes, but the noise sounds similar to hush), Hush (from Goodnight Moon -- "the little old lady who was whispering "Hush"), and I'm sure there are others... I knew I needed to keep track of those words better!

*Sammy is a Christian now!  He accepted Christ into his heart in mid-September.  I have the date somewhere... He is so happy to tell anyone who will listen to him about his decision, and how important it is to have Jesus in your heart so that you can go to heaven and live forever with God when you die!  I am just so excited that my whole family will be in heaven with me someday.  I know some people will make fun of me for believing these things, and they might even say that I am brainwashing my children, but that's okay.  The only One I have to please is my Father in heaven.  I can never please everyone here on earth.  That would just be impossible, and a colossal waste of my time!  I have to do what I know in my heart is right.  Sammy is totally excited to learn about Jesus, and about the things God has promised to those who believe in Him.  I am excited to be the Mama of two born-again boys!  Oliver is next... :)

*Mike and I celebrated our 10th Anniversary a week ago.  Wow, it has been a full 10 years!  4 babies (3 of whom I am raising, 1 who we will meet when we get to heaven), 3 very scary ambulance rides, 1 year of cancer, and 2 people more in love with each other than when we got married, with so many wonderful memories and the support and love of both of our families and a whole bunch of amazing friends... we can't wait to see what God has in store for us in the future!    

Upside Down

We have spent the last month being sick and recovering, and it is so wonderful to be well again!  I am full of pent-up energy now, so I am using that energy to turn the house upside down and inside out.  We are moving furniture, cleaning (spring cleaning, perhaps?), touching up paint, and trying to get the house set up in a way that works for us right now.

In other news, Mike turned 40 this month, Oliver turns 1 this week, and I will be 32.  Getting older is sure a lot more interesting when you are only 1 year old!!  I can't believe Oliver has been around for a whole year already.  He has brought us so much joy, and been such a blessing to our lives.  He has also given us our share of scares and ER trips and doctor's visits!

This morning before school, we played dominoes.  With Eric Carle pictures.  It is a lovely game called Matchominoes, which was a present to Sammy from Aunt Susan.  Thanks, Aunt Susan!  We have a lot of fun with it.

Next up was a craft made with craft sticks we bought last night on a family outing.  It will eventually be pen/pencil/paintbrush holders, and I'll post pictures of the process when they are done.

I think I *might* need to work with Sammy on perseverance.  He kind of gave up after only a few sticks.  Or maybe crafts just aren't his thing!

Griffin breezed through his schoolwork today, and then the boys wanted to play the Wii.  Only it just happened to be lunchtime.  So I told them that if they would make their own lunch when they were done playing, they could play the Wii during lunchtime.  And I sat here at my computer and enjoyed a lovely lunch of California Pizza Kitchen, Sicilian Style.  Fresh from the microwave.

It was heavenly.  Kind of.  And at only 43 grams of carbs, it totally fit into my diet right now!  Much better than the hot fudge covered brownie sundae with nuts and cherries and whipped cream that I wanted.  Well, I could have had the nuts, anyway.

Speaking of nuts, the boys decided that they would venture into the world of peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich making today.  Thus far, they have only made deli meat sandwiches.  There was more spreading involved!  And more goo!  And more mess!  And more fun!  Whee!!!  Yeah, I think they'll be doing that again.  Those PB&Js tasted WAY better than the ones Mom makes.   And I got a break, and a quiet lunch with only the sounds of Mario, Luigi and Yoshi in the background.

I need to go figure out what's for dinner.  It has just been a lovely day -- did I mention that it is above 60 degrees outside?  I've had the windows open all day -- and I wanted to write about it.

Big Boy Sammy!

Sammy is officially potty training!

We ran out of Pull-Ups last night, and I really don't want to spend another $30 for a box that will last us only a couple of weeks. I can buy a lot of little underwear for that price! So I am biting the bullet -- during chemo week, of all times, but I have a feeling that soon I will not have the energy to even think about potty training a stubborn 3-year-old, so may as well get it done now!

Sammy is VERY excited about his new underwear-wearing venture. Today should be interesting, that's for sure!

I am anxiously awaiting a Stampin' Up! order. It is my first supply order as a demonstrator, and there is a (pink, of course!) organizer in there to help me with all of my paperwork. I also ordered the new Occasions Mini Catalog to give to my customers. It has so many cute sets in it! There is even a new train set that is adorable that I think I may just have to order for the boys. :-)

I also ordered some jewelry on Saturday. I spent my birthday money (thank you, Grandma and Mom and Dad!) on a leather bracelet with freshwater pearls and sterling silver, and a ring that says "Be true to your dreams." I love them! They should be here by the end of the week. They are from Silpada, a local direct sales company. My neighbor had a party and invited me. :-)

I go in for blood tests on Tuesday and chemo #2 on Wednesday. They will be starting me on the fourth drug, bleomycin, on Wednesday, and it can have some harsh effects on the lungs, so the first dose will be small to make sure I don't have a really bad reaction to it.

Last night I made this:

It is a notebook to help me keep everything organized. I never realized how much paper would be involved in the cancer process. Bills, surgery instructions, treatment info, prescription info, cards (which overtook our dining room doorway, and I prefer to have them in my hand so that I can take them out and reread them on the tough days), pictures, a schedule of who is coming to help out on what days, and things like that will go in this notebook. It is my little survival mechanism, and it was fun to make! I started with a blank chipboard notebook, covered it with patterned paper, then picked out bright, cheery colors for the dividers and covered each one of those as well.

This notebook will eventually become my cancer scrapbook. I will eventually be able to take out all of the medical mumbo-jumbo and just keep pictures and journaling and cards in it, but until then I am hoping that it will help me out on the days when a doctor or other "informational" person calls -- I actually just got off the phone with someone else wanting to send me information, which is all very helpful, but creates a lot of paper to wade through.

Well, on to another week! Hope it is a good one for you. :-)

Take A Breather... If You Can

This beauty was my grandma's next door "neeeeeigh"-bor (now that was a bad joke) before she moved closer to us. I thought the picture was dreamy and relaxing, kind of like our weekend would be... if I could only breathe.

I think I may be getting asthma.

Ugh... I sure hope this is just allergies, but I may be going to visit the doctor on Monday. My throat feels like it is "swollen", for lack of a better word. It does not hurt at all, which is weird, it is just hard to swallow food, and I have had a few episodes when it was hard to breathe because it feels like my airway was being constricted. And I have a lot of phlegm.

And of course ALL of our Tylenol Allergy is expired.

You'd better believe that I'll be picking some more up tomorrow when I do my Walgreens shopping.

Oh, and Mike got the closet in the loft done, and I finally got the shelf liners tacked on today, so I have started loading it up with our "overstock" stuff. A whole new closet!! It's like a dream come true. Our bathroom is going to look a lot better, that's for sure.

I don't know what it is about fall, but for me it is even more motivating than spring as far as cleaning and decluttering. I start to feel claustrophobic with all of our "stuff" surrounding me all day long. Maybe it's because in the summer we're outside so much more, and then in the fall we can't go out as much and have to spend more time indoors, so I notice it more? I don't know.

Well, we have church tomorrow, so I'd better go throw in a load of laundry, because I'm out of nice slacks. I got myself a soft, comfy pair of brown sweatpants last week, and I can't wait to wear them! It's still too warm for me. I want to be cold!

Speaking of being cold, I got my holiday mini catalog from Stampin' Up! in the mail a few days ago. Ahhhhh... I love the Christmas stamp sets!! I think I may need a couple of them. Yes, of course, need. Because the six Christmas sets that I have aren't enough.
And all that talk about decluttering and getting rid of stuff? Yeah. That most emphatically does NOT apply to my stamps. I love them all. And I have a whole shelf in my stamp cabinet that is not being used. Yet.

Bad Mood

Yeah... it's not happening here, that's for sure! I am in a HORRIBLE MOOD. Don't mess with me right now.

I know I should be in a better mood, but I think it really has to do with the fact that

1. the sun isn't shining,

2. my (normally adorable) two-year-old has been a whiny, demanding MESS all day long and keeps repeating himself over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over,

3. my wrist hurts for some unknown reason and I can hardly bend it,

4. my hair is flat today and would NOT do anything this morning,

5. my eyes have been bothering me and it is hard to wear eye makeup because I feel the need to itch them all the time (must be allergies),

6. my floor will not stay clean for more than 2 hours because of little boy crumbs, toys, blankets, shoes (mine and theirs), and the never-ending layer of dog hair -- and I just vacuumed it yesterday,

7. my dining room table and end tables and bookshelf and other surfaces are cluttered with books, and I should really get more bookshelves to hold them all,

8. I called my husband to ask him if I could have tonight off, and forgot that he is playing poker tonight since he didn't get to on Monday (his normal poker-playing night).

Anyway.

So I'm sitting here trying to think of the GOOD in all of these situations. Like....

1. It has been nice and cool and rainy for the last two days, and we have not needed to have the air conditioner on, and it is so much fun to snuggle up under a blanket with a warm drink (or drive around with a Spiced Pumpkin Latte with Bonnie! That was something fun I did today.)

2. I have two adorable boys who love me so much, and can't wait to spend every waking minute with me. They have both lived past infancy, and are healthy and happy (well, most of the time!). I am so grateful to have been blessed with them.

3. The miracles of modern medicine... AKA Tylenol, Aleve, heat rubs, lotions, ointments, and on and on...

4. I have a fun hair color. I love having red hair.

5. I don't have to use special cleaner to wash off my eye makeup at the end of the day.

6. My children have lots of fun with their toys, and it is so much fun for me to watch the new games they can come up with using their blankets and cars. We have a huge black dog who loves us so much he would sit on us all day long if he could. Sounds weird, but it's true.

7. I have a husband who works hard all day long so that we can afford to buy books to feed my reading addiction. Well, his paychecks are useful for other things, too...like food...

8. I can order delivery for dinner tonight, and watch "Annie" with the boys (haven't seen that movie since I was a kid), and read to my heart's content after they go to sleep.

Name Change

Hi, my name is... guess what? Take a guess. Any guess will do. But you probably won't guess THIS name!!

Er... huh? What? How did you get THAT from Carody???

Apparently this is what they heard when I went through the drive-through at Starbucks and they asked me for my name. Which has never happened before. Not the going through the drive-through part, obviously (I could happily live in the Starbucks drive-through... yes, Bonnie, I went there today, after we just went there yesterday... it's been a happy weekend!), but the asking for my name part. I thought they only did that when you went inside.

So I didn't spell out my name for him, because I wanted to just see what he came up with. Well, I didn't even notice the name on my cup until we were halfway through the card class I went to this morning with my friend Jaymee. We went to Roni's house (Roni is an awesome Stampin' Up! demonstrator who has a make-10-different-cards-for-12-dollars class at her house once a month) to make our ten cards, and I was so excited about the class (and a bit confused because I hadn't turned on the right street to get to her house, so we had to backtrack just a bit) that I forgot to check out my cup after we left Starbucks.

Then during the class, Jaymee asked me what my cup said. And we all had quite the laugh.

I'm still giggling, actually. Who in their right minds would name their child Tyranny?

In other news (or could it be related?) I found a FUN website just for redheads (I hear we can be a bit tyrannical), at www.realmofredheads.com. It is too fun, and I ordered a couple of shirts from there. I'll show them to you when they arrive.

I went to Mardel -- my new favorite place -- on Thursday night (Mike gave me the night off! Yay!!) and bought two huge maps, one USA and one world map, for the wall of our school room. Griffin is always really interested in where places are, and where we are going, and I thought it would be fun to get him started with geography early. I loved geography, and {shameless bragging about to happen, brace yourself} my junior college World Geography professor wrote a letter to a well-known university and recommended me for a geography scholarship, all without my knowledge. I got a letter from the university praising me for my accomplishment in the area of geography, which came as a huge surprise to me, because I thought my geography professor didn't like any of us.

Anyway, I am preparing for our homeschool year to officially start on Tuesday. It won't be anything earth-shattering, but we will be trying out a new schedule, which we'll need to adjust often, I'm sure. I'd like for Griffin to stop taking naps, and for us have school time during Sammy's nap. We'll see if that happens or not. Griffin sleeps really well at naptime, so his little energetic body might need the rest that a nap provides, even if he is 4 years old.

I have been studying all of the different methods of homeschooling, so that I can tailor the boys' education to their learning styles. There are so many choices!

*Classical

*Principle Approach

*Traditional Textbook

*Charlotte Mason

*Unit Study

*Special Needs

*Carschooling

*Eclectic

*Unschooling/Delight Directed

*Whole-Heart Learning

Just to name a few!

The choices are many, and it will be nice to be able to have the flexibility to teach the boys in the way that they can learn best. I think that right now, our best bets are going to be reading, educational games, and learning by experiencing. I'm also going to use Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Engelmann, Haddox and Bruner. It is supposed to take about 20 minutes a day, and if we do it every weekday we'll be done with the program in 20 weeks. I have the full curriculum from Sonlight for Pre-K, too, so we have a lot ot look forward to this year!

Well, I think I'll go watch a movie with Mike before bed. He was off of work on Friday, and will be off again on Monday, so this has been a nice break!

Yeah, about that...

So we didn't end up having the squash casserole for dinner tonight, but it is on the menu for tomorrow! We hadn't had pizza/movie night yet this week, and since Mike took Griffin out (to Pizza Street) on a "man date" yesterday for lunch... another blog altogether... he wasn't in the mood for pizza, but I seriously needed a break after having a very long, trying day with the boys today. So he picked up Chinese on his way home. I was good and ordered Egg Foo Yung (sp?), which I don't even want anyone to tell me is actually bad for me... but I'm sure it is bad for me somehow. Salt, maybe? I order the veggie one, so it's just eggs and vegetables.

Does anyone have a good all-natural pizza recipe, or a brand of pizza you especially like that is made with natural ingredients? I like California Pizza Kitchen, but I'm not sure about the health factor there.

Anyway, I'm off to RedBox to return Flawless (a superb movie, Mike and I both REALLY enjoyed it! highly recommend it) and rent our movie for the night!

A Trip Down Memory Lane

We went to get our family pictures taken today. Finally!! We were supposed to have them done before Christmas last year, because that was going to be what Mike's whole family exchanged as Christmas presents. Yeah... um. Didn't happen. But we finally got it done!! We went to Wally World, and the lady who took our pictures was very nice, and understanding, and great with the boys. She was older, and had trouble lifting them up sometimes, but they loved her antics to get them to smile.

Griffin kept acting like he was going to jump off of the "picture platform," so she was thoroughly freaked out by the time we were done, but she said that all in all, they were some of the easiest kids she had taken pictures of. Yeah. Right. They probably say that to all of the parents. But the boys were good, for the most part. They only tried to climb up on the "picture stools" (which they were strictly forbidden from doing, lest the picture lady get fired) a few times, and Griffin knocked Sammy off of a wooden bench once and made him cry, but other than that, they were really trying to reign in their enthusiasm and behave.

When we were done, we all went to McD's to play and have lunch. There were a little girl and boy there playing, and we got to know them pretty well as Mike chased them screaming and yelling through the tubes in the PlayPlace. Fun stuff! Mike is tired. Sammy also got to be "The Monster" and chase all of the kids as well. For some reason, Sammy is often cast as "The Monster" or "The Bad Guy" or "The One To Run Away From." Since he is usually the smallest, I don't really understand this, but I think it may have something to do with the fact that he is the least likely to actually catch the kids running away from him. The downside to having him be "The Chaser" is that he generally loses interest in the game at hand very quickly, and will wander off to do his own thing while the other kids are still running away from him. Then everyone becomes thoroughly confused, and they will start to look for Sammy and remind him that he was chasing them. "Oh yeah," says Sammy, and wanders off again.

Oh well. It was fun while it lasted. All 2 1/2 minutes of it. Maybe it IS true, that a child's attention span is as old as their age!

An update on Diamond: She is doing okay, but had been having tummy troubles yesterday from the antibiotic she has been taking for the past few days. I haven't talked to Bonnie to see if Diamond's little stomach was settled yet, or if they will switch her antibiotic. Her face is healing nicely, though, and there haven't been any complications from the actual bites. Pray for Bonnie, though, as she is trying to get all of the loose ends tied up that result from an animal attack on a child. It is a tedious process, and yet time sensitive at the same time. I won't go into all of the details on here, but suffice it to say that it has been very stressful, emotional and heartwrenching for their family.

My grandma will be moving here at the end of August! Well, not HERE, but only about 45 minutes away from here, instead of 3 and 1/2 hours away. Yay!! But speaking of emotional processes, she is in the process of packing, giving away and moving 30 years worth of "stuff" that accumulates when you live in the same house for that long. She and her husband built the house she lives in now, and it is full of memories for her, and also for the rest of the family.

For me, it is the only house that has been a "constant" the entire time I have been alive. Every year, the family would go there for Thanksgiving, eat a big dinner, rest a bit and watch TV, and then bundle up and go outside to collect hedgeapples that had fallen from trees around Grandma's acreage. We collected them in a little red metal wagon, and then we'd all gather at the neighbor's fence, which was surrounded by trees, and throw them as far as we could into the neighbor's yard. (The neighbors were okay with this arrangement, by the way.) It was one of those family traditions that you wish would stay the same.

Grandma would have a puzzle set up on a table in the living room, and there was usually a little group of people sitting around it working away. We would all watch It's a Wonderful Life, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Charlie Brown Christmas, and Garfield Christmas on TV on Thanksgiving night, and then all of us kids (there are 6 of us, although 3 of us have children of our own now) would pile into our sleeping bags on the living room floor and whisper and giggle our way to sleep.

In the morning we would wake up to toast, coffee, juice, cereal, scrambled eggs, little sausages, and homemade pumpkin and banana bread. I always loved breakfast at Grandma's! Then people would either head home, or sometimes we would get to stay for an extra day.

My sister and I spent a week at Grandma's house every summer for several years, too. We sewed our own dresses, played the piano in the piano room, learned how to do latch hook, and threw a big "wiffle ball" back and forth over Grandma's garage roof. We also loved to go for walks in the tall grass that grew in the "field" on her land that she would mow a path through every year. We would come inside and do a "tick search" when we were done.

Christy would inevitably end up with a bloody nose at least once every summer at Grandma's house. The air is a lot drier there than it is where we live. We would go to the library and rent movies, and sometimes even go watch one at the theater. I can remember one time when we went to see a movie, and I had a really bad headache, and Grandma sat there and rubbed my hand to make the headache go away. She said there was a pressure point in there somewhere. It certainly took my mind off of the headache, anyway! I don't remember the movie at all, but I remember that.

Yes, there are a lot of memories in Grandma's house. I will take some pictures when I go sometime in the next few weeks. Mike and I will be making a trip up there soon (without the boys!) to help out with the moving process a bit, and bring home some things that Grandma won't need or doesn't have room for in her new place.

Wow, I just took a trip down memory lane there. I have been writing for over an hour! I should probably go feed my family dinner. The boys are playing happily outside, as I watch through the window. It has been very hot today, so they won't be out there long, but they love to be outdoors!

Okay, time to get off the computer!

Just Passin' the Time

VERY long day of watching the boys... Four is so much more work than two, it is really unbelievable! But it is fun at the same time, and the day seems to go by pretty quickly.

We have named our little group. We are now "The Peanut Butter and Jelly Club" and we each play our own roles. I am bread. Griffin and Nicolas are peanut butter (chunky, apparently). JJ is jelly ("plain jelly", he told me when I asked him what kind of jelly he was). Sammy is bread too. And Mike... well. Mike is nuts. Er, well. Nuts as in peanuts. Apparently he is the "chunks" in the chunky peanut butter. Or so declared JJ today when we were naming our roles in this club of ours. And then we made a Peanut Butter and Jelly Club Sandwich... otherwise known as a Group Hug! Very fun. :)

We played outside twice today. It was SO nice this morning that we had to take advantage of it, and then this afternoon the sun was calling to the boys again, so they ran outside after JJ's mom picked him up and played like crazy little people until I called them in about ten minutes later. They were dirty from head to toe, so they had a bath. Ah, the sweet smell of little boys after a bubbly bath. It doesn't last long!

We watched Baby Songs Christmas this morning. I know, call me crazy, but I am in the Christmas Spirit lately! It must be all of the good will going on at The Painted House lately. There are some very generous people out there! And the Christmas music, along with the video of horse-drawn carriages, kids laughing and openings gifts, and families gathered around singing together, just put me in the mood even more. For Christmas, that is.

I'll be going out for coffee with Bonnie tonight. It is so nice to spend time out of the house with a really great friend! And no kids. What a concept! I just got home from a trip to Costco all by myself, which was nice, but not really my idea of a relaxing time. I need to sit. And then go to bed. My bedtime these days is still 9:30. Some days I make it, some days I push it 'til 10 or later and then drink espresso in the morning to wake myself up. Works every time!

The Big Reveal

Okay, so the title was just a teaser. The Big Reveal will happen tomorrow. But I can tell you about it today!

Griffin's birthday is tomorrow, and as a gift to him (and to Sammy) I gave the upstairs hallway bathroom a makeover. It went from having yucky kitty litter boxes in the bathtub and litter stuck all over the floor, the toilet, and the sink, and the cats' food and water dishes cluttering the floor, to THIS!




Just kidding.




But I'll have pictures tomorrow. I worked on it for a long time today, and got all hot and worked up quite a sweat, and I'm tired now, so I rented a couple of movies from RedBox, and am popping popcorn as I type this. And it is done now. And Mike is coming up the stairs.

I promise to post those pictures...uh...some time before next Saturday! ;)

Phew!!!

We have had quite a day today! But let me back up a bit... I stayed up later than my bedtime last night to watch part of a movie with Mike. I actually watched all of "Dan in Real Life," which was a really fun movie. Then Mike watched "Beowulf and Grendel," which is just not my kind of movie, but I stayed up and watched the first part... until I decided that sleep was more important than watching the rest of the movie.

Anyway, I ended up sleeping in until 8 this morning, which just throws my whole day off. I really need to leave the movie watching for Friday and Saturday nights! I made my espresso and had a lovely sprouted sesame seed bagel with onion and chive cream cheese, natural cheddar cheese and broccoli sprouts.

We picked up JJ from school, then headed over to Bass Pro to check out the big fish tank and the (dead, stuffed, but still decidedly cool) animals there. We rode the elevator and walked around and had a grand old time, and the boys were so well behaved! It was wonderful.

Then we went to Arby's and picked up lunch and took it to Mike's office, where we all had a lovely picnic on the picnic table located in between a big field of tall, waving grass and a charming little lake with lily pads in it and a walking trail around it. After we finished eating, we all walked around the lake. We were going to play Pooh-Sticks -- if you haven't seen Winnie the Pooh, "Pooh-Sticks" is a game in which you all choose sticks, then drop them on one side of a bridge and whoever's stick gets to the other side first is the winner -- but the bridge at Daddy's office lake was located just on top of a dam-like thing that just wouldn't work for Pooh-Sticks. So we abandoned our sticks and finished our walk.

We all took a restroom break inside Daddy's office, which is just the ultimate in cool places to the boys. Then we came home and spent quite some time playing in the back yard on the swings. We decided another walk was in order, and walked down the trail behind our house, over the bridge (no water under that bridge) and up to the road, then back again. Yeah, I got my exercise in today! Chasing three active little boys around outside would tire anyone out! They will sleep well tonight, though, and they had SO much fun collecting roly-poly bugs and yellow dandelions and making wishes on big puffy white dandelions before blowing them to pieces... yeah, it was worth it.

I am enjoying sitting right now, and am watching Griffin work on a puzzle and Sammy play on the little VTech computer. I'm really looking forward to tonight when Mike comes home, and am hoping that maybe, just maybe I can have some time to work on cards for my website. I am running pretty low, and I have so many ideas floating around in my head, I just need to sit down and put them "on paper." With my new early bedtime, I need to use my evenings wisely and not waste my free time!

Okay, time to fix dinner. We'll be having cabbage and mushrooms over Ramen noodles tonight. Um, without the mushrooms. Because we don't have any. I think we'll have beets too. Mike's mom makes the most awesome pickled beets, and we have been enjoying them with many meals. They are very versatile, and go with a lot of different foods, so we pair them with at least one meal a week, it seems. Yummy!

Breakfast

It appears I will be getting up much earlier than my usual wakey-wakey time for the rest of the summer! I will need to be up and ready by 6:30 now!! We have another little boy who will be joining us for the summer, and he gets here early! I'm so excited to have a reason for getting up early again. I'm such a morning person!

It's disgusting, really.

I was always the one who showed up to work at McDonald's (that was over 10 years ago, I can't believe it!) at 6am -- which meant that I would have been up since 4:30 -- bright and perky and smiling and driving everybody else there nuts because they were tired and groggy and sometimes hung over from the night before. I soon learned to contain my excitement at getting to watch the sun rise every day, and just lean out the drive-through window (where I was usually placed because I was the fastest moving person that early in the morning) and soak in all of God's beauty while the morning dew evaporated and the sun warmed up the earth.

I love the smell of coffee brewing, or in my case now, espresso, thanks to Mike's famous poker-playing skillz. He won me an espresso machine, and I am learning how to brew the perfect cup for me. I broke the glass pot right off the bat, so I'm going to be buying one, but I can handle $13... lots better than paying for a new espresso machine.

My breakfast this morning has been:

*a banana, before my quiet time

*Bible reading... I am reading my new Women of Faith "The Message" Bible (Happy Mother's Day from my family!), and I love it! Today I read Genesis 9, where God established the rainbow as the sign of His promise to never again kill every living thing with a flood. I also read Matthew 1-2, about Jesus' birth and the wise men and Herod killing all of the baby boys ages 2 and under (what a horrid person he was!) and then I flipped over to Proverbs and read Proverbs 31, because I wanted to see what it was like in "The Message" version. Oh, wow. It was still just as convicting as ever, if not more...

*a cup of organic espresso with organic cream and Hershey's syrup (just negated all of the organic stuff there!)

*a mug filled with organic whole milk yogurt and topped with a generous helping of Flax Plus Pumpkin Seed Granola

Yummy stuff!

Now the boys are awake, and Sammy is sitting on the kitty, so I need to go run some interference!

Meetin' Time!

Oh, how I love Stampin' Up! meetings! We have a card club that meets once a month and we make a couple of cards and talk and hang out and, oh yeah, order a bunch of really fun stuff from Stampin' Up! :) It's a happy time. And this month the meeting was at MY house!! Which means I am the "hostess" and get all of the hostess goodies you get when you... hostess... a party. There really was no better way to word that. Or maybe there was, but I'm in a hurry to go play with my last month's order, so I'm not paying attention to grammar.



Anyway, I didn't take pictures of the meeting, but just picture a bunch of giddy women sitting around a table (okay, was I the ONLY giddy one there? nah) stamping, embossing, punching, drooling, and eating Ghirardelli -- I totally just butchered that spelling but I'm too lazy to get up and go look at the brownie box -- triple chocolate fudge brownies. Yeah, it was a good night. I had the worst headache before everyone got here, but amazingly enough it was gone by the time the meeting started! Well, it could be because I treated it with my one-two knock-em-dead headache killer combo. Caffiene and Rapid-Release Tylenol. No headache stands a chance. The chocolate didn't hurt, either, I'm sure. So now I am still wide awake, when my schedule tells me I should be going to bed in half an hour. Not gonna happen. So you get to sit there and read this rambling blog, and maybe look at some cute pictures of my animals, if I ever get around to posting them. ;)



Griffin informed me today that I need to add "reading time" to the schedule. I have stopped reading to them in their bedroom right before naptime, because that just draws the bedtime routine on for WAY too long, and they expect it Every. Single. Time. So I've stopped. We sat down to read this morning halfway in between breakfast and lunch (we were obviously not using the schedule because if we were, it would have been time to go outside and play), and the boys just loved it. Even Sammy sat still... well, okay, he paused while running around the living room... to listen to how the Magic School Bus with Ms. Frizzle's class in it got shrunk (got shrunk? I don't know...) and went inside of a moldy old log and learned all about reusing old things, recycling and not trashing something just because it is old, moldy and...old. Good times.

Oh, okay, the pictures are finally done loading to Blogger, so here they are!

Potty Humor

Sooooo... what do you do when you have a toilet seat sitting in your kitchen sink? What? You've never had a toilet seat sitting in your sink, you say? How gross, you say? WELL, I have a toilet seat sitting in my kitchen sink right now, and let me tell you what we do. We laugh about it. And make jokes about it. And it will keep being funny until... well, until the toilet seat isn't in the sink anymore.


So let me tell you a story. We'll call it

I'm Getting New Shelves In My Laundry Room

Mike and I have come to an agreement about laundry and dishes. He doesn't like to put the clean stuff away, and I don't like to wash the dirty stuff. So he has been doing all of the washing/drying and I have been doing all of the putting away (and I recently decided to add to my list the handwashing of the dishes that can't go in the dishwasher).

Anyway, things have been running along smoothly for several weeks, with both of us doing our jobs and even helping each other out once in a while. Basically, "helping each other out" means that Mike helped me empty the dishwasher once and I threw in a load of laundry for him once. But like I said, things have been going smoothly, so we usually don't enter into each other's territory.

Well, Mike got tired of having stuff sitting on the dryer, because when you pull the clothes out of the laundry chute they land on the top of the dryer and whatever happens to be on top of the dryer comes tumbling off and lands on your feet, or just gets mixed up in the jumble of clothes. It is very annoying, and it finally made him mad. And that is the story of how the toilet seat got broken. Oh yeah, and the story of why I am getting new shelves in my laundry room!

Huh, you say?

Well, I really have no idea how it happened, and I wasn't going to ask, but the next thing I knew, the toilet seat was in the sink. I know that strange things happen when I get angry sometimes, and Mike is very understanding and doesn't ask questions, so I figured I'd give him this one.

Anyway, that evening, just about an hour later, I was frying shells for tacos and Bonnie somehow sensed that from 15 miles away and called. Just kidding, Bonnie. It IS the second time that has happened, though. It was pretty funny. So they got a dinner invitation. And while we all sat here eating tacos and baby-watching -- Diamond was making faces in her sleep -- we kept making cracks (no pun intended) about the toilet seat sitting in our kitchen sink.

And that's pretty much the whole story. Mike has gone to Lowe's and brought back two toilet seats so far (one of the trips was when we learned that Bonnie and Caleb were coming over, and we knew that we would need a toilet seat ON the toilet in the guest bathroom if we were going to be proper hosts. Neither of the ones we have tried were the right shape, so right now the bottom half of the broken seat rests gingerly on the toilet until we can get a new one.

Apparently we have the only SQUARE toilet around here. Maybe that's something they only do in California and New York. And I'm sure that Caleb would tell us that we don't want to replace the toilet (after a long, arduous toilet-replacing episode he went through several weeks ago) unless it REALLY needs to be replaced, so we'll special order the toilet seat from CA or NY if we have to.

All right, it's almost time for me to go. I promised the boys that we could play with Play-Doh and go outside to play, not necessarily in that order, after I got done on the computer (and I said I would be done soon), and we don't break our Play-Doh promises around here.

One other thing, though. I am going to be implementing a schedule soon, and that could mean one of two things. Either it will work so well that I will have time scheduled to blog regularly (hallelujah!) or it will work so well that I will realize all of the responsibilities (there are FOUR i's in that word!?) that I have been shirking and will be so busy getting everything done that blogging will become a thing of the past, or a once-monthly venture, or some such thing. I'm hoping for the former scenario as I really enjoy blogging, but I felt I needed to give my readers fair warning.

Maybe I'll blog about the schedule! That should be interesting. And scary. I've never been good at keeping a schedule, as Mike can tell you. My "schedules" are more like "goals". If I happen to get something done that was on the schedule, I cross it off. And if I do something that wasn't on the schedule, I write it down, then cross it off. Come on, people, I know I'm not the only one who does that.

Okay, off to play outside with two little boys who are hopping around right now, trying to put their crocs on.

Busy Busy Busy

I have been so busy with so many different things! I wanted to take time to blog today, though. It won't be a long one because the boys just woke up from their naps. :)

I have been working on my card business, Carody's Cards, and it is so much fun! I just love coming up with new card designs and then packaging the newly made cards into their little bags. I have had several orders already, and am having a fun time with this new venture. Now I just need to get crackin' on more birthday, Mother's Day, and eventually Christmas cards -- I'll need to start those soon, because I'll have to make SO many of them.

I'm working on birth announcements for Bonnie also. Diamond is so precious... here is another picture of her, just for grins.

Bonnie is such an amazing friend! She just had a baby, and yet she has brought me coffee twice since she got home from the hospital... actually once ON HER WAY HOME from the hospital. Wow. Just wow. Of course we had a fun photo shoot while she was at the house. I definitely don't have the skills of a professional when it comes to photography, but this little Diamond baby is so photogenic that it makes my pictures look GOOD.

I had a MOPS meeting last night, and it was a fun time of relaxation and chatting with other moms. We had pizza and root beer floats, and then all just sat around in a room filled with comfy couches and chatted it up for an hour. So relaxing and rejuvenating, especially when I realize that there are other people who are a lot more stressed out than I am, and have lots more to deal with in their lives. I go home after MOPS and Mike is putting the boys to bed, so I get to just chill out and read the evening away until bedtime.

Well, I need to figure out what to make these hungry men for dinner!

Lovely Day

We just spent a lovely afternoon outside. The boys dug in the yard and rearranged the rocks while I swept the porch and cleaned off the chairs.


We had stopped at a garage sale this morning, and the boys each found two balls and a truck toy. Griffin's truck is a "Transformer"-type thing, and it turns from a robot into a cute yellow dump truck. They don't quite have the hang of "transforming" it, yet, so they bring it to me when they want it to be changed. I'm quite good at it!


Sammy walked up to a table at the garage sale and immediately picked out the one Bob the Builder toy there. I think his name is Scoop. He is a red bulldozer, and he even talks! He says, "I looove getting dirty!"... it's no wonder Sammy likes him. He can relate so well.


Oh, I forgot. Mike gave me a "job" to do. He is going to be vacuuming and steam cleaning the carpets when he gets home (yay! what a man!) and he wanted me to have the boys pick up their toys so that he could get started on it right away.


Maybe I'll order pizza tonight. Hmmm. There is a really good pizza place close to here, and I can order online. How technologically advanced is that? Actually, Christy has had issues with their online ordering the only two times she's ordered from there, so maybe I'll call. But we love their breadsticks. Sooooo yummy. They spread cheese on a thin crust, then fold it in half and put more cheeses on top, and the spices are amazing!


The boys are scurrying around, with gentle reminders from me to "keep picking up and don't stop to play!" They want to make their daddy happy.


Oh, did I mention that Griffin had a big splinter in his hand, which is why we were only able to stay outside for an hour? (Might seem like a long time to some people, but an hour in little-boy-outside-playing-time is like two minutes.) We came inside and after much convincing he allowed me to dig it out with a needle instead of the tweezers. The "stick," as he called it, that was stuck in his hand (It's not a splinter, Mom, it's a STICK.) was down too deep for tweezers. Sorry if that makes any of you cringe and squirm in your seat. Griffin was amazingly (after a few minutes of crying and twitching when I brought out the needle) calm about the whole procedure. Of course, he DID have a popsicle. Because sugar has such a calming effect on kids, don'tcha know?


I think I'll go order the pizza now. The boys are almost done cleaning up toys, and I think they need some more "gentle prodding" to help them with their motivation. tee hee


It has been a good day!


Oh yeah, and I feel much better today. That helps.


I need to sweep and mop the wood floor

I am feeling a little better today. Not too much, but a little. I'm tired and achy, but Bonnie is bringing dinner over (yes, the woman who is nine months pregnant and ready to pop any day now is bringing us dinner, what a woman!) and we just ate leftovers for lunch and got McDonald's for breakfast, so I haven't even had to cook.

We had J.J. over today. He is 4, and the boys all had fun playing together. J.J. loves superheroes, and since Griffin and Sammy really don't know anything about ANY superheroes, they listened with awe to J.J.'s tales of Spiderman, Superman, the Incredible Hulk, and Octimus Primus (I have no idea if I'm spelling that right, it's a Transformers thing).

They pulled out the Legos, and J.J. set to work building superhero robots. Griffin was then schooled on how to build a Lego watergun. That quickly turned into throwing the guns across the living room (who knew!?) which resulted in a Lego watergun hitting J.J. on the head. Oh my. It bled for a while (gotta love head wounds), and finally stopped when I put an ice cube directly on it. We then blow-dried his hair, which he loved, and he was as good as new. Griffin's bottom didn't fare so well, since he was the one who threw the "gun", and had apparently done it on purpose.

We broke out the Play-Doh, and watched as J.J. made replicas of superheroes and their cars. He's quite talented! Then we got out the crayons and construction paper, and J.J. colored a Spiderman on Griffin's paper, which Griffin promptly ruined by coloring it in the wrong way. Griffin loved it, though. He thought it was cool having an older boy here.

J.J. will be coming over again next week, and the boys are really looking forward to it. I am too; he's a fun kid! I'll post some pictures once I get his mom's okay.

This is a happy blog post. I am sitting here, drinking my coffee, and the boys are... well, okay, they WERE napping, I can hear that Sammy will be coming downstairs soon. I just wanted to share a few pictures of things that have made me happy.

Pink Gerbera Daisies. They make me so happy! Daisies really are such a friendly flower, just like Kathleen Kelly says in "You've Got Mail." I especially like Gerberas because they are so hardy and don't wilt easily and don't have leaves on the stems, which makes for nice pictures. They are a very "clean" looking flower.

I picked up the flowers at Whole Foods about a week ago. They still look great! I wanted to capture their beauty on film so that I could remember the combination of flowers in the bouquet. It just smelled SO amazing as I walked past it that I picked it up and put it in my cart without thinking twice about it. It has eucalyptus, some sort of evergreen with little pink flowers on it, the Calla Lilies, and flock, which I had never smelled before but quickly fell in love with. It is a very clean smell, but flowery too!

I am such an impulse shopper, and the stores really know how to find their way into a girl's heart (and purse!). As I looked at the bouquet, I was struck by how similar it looked to my wedding bouquet. Okay, so it has some major differences, but they both have Calla Lilies, my other favorite kind of flower. I'm not going to say they are my second favorite, because I love them both equally as much. That would be like saying I have a favorite son!

Here is the wedding bouquet, sorry about the blurry picture!

The "LaTte" mug was a birthday present from Bonnie, along with a gift card to one of my favorite places ever, Starbucks! She knows me too well. I think she has heard me commenting on the "word" mugs... you know, "Coffee," "Latte," "Joe,"... well, maybe not "Joe," but you get my drift... every time we have gone any place that sells mugs. And she bought me one to shut me up. Just kidding. I LOVE IT!! I have had coffee in it twice, and she gave it to me on Wednesday night. hehehe... I know they say that caffiene is bad for you, but I honestly don't think I am as nice of a person if I don't have any in my system. This was evidenced a few weeks ago when Griffin asked if we could go to McDonald's for breakfast, "and please can we go get you some coffee, Mommy?" Yeah. Gulp.
Okay, so Sammy fell asleep again, which is why I am still typing away. And with caffiene in my system, I feel like I could go on for hours!! Yippee!!!!! Just kidding. I do have other things I could be doing (don't we all!) but I just love blogging.
I dug the last 3 days' worth of mail out of our tiny mailbox, and in it was the new Sonlight curriculum magazine! I'm SO excited to sit down and pore over it. Even though I know we're going to be getting the P3/4 (preschool for 3-4 year olds) curriculum, it is still fun to look at. Griffin snuggled up next to me and we had fun looking at all of the books in the catalog. He's so excited about school, even though we have been doing some school-type things already. It is the "official" feeling of getting your books, planning your schedule, and writing out lesson plans that is so exciting at the beginning of the school year. I remember every year being so jealous of Mom. She got to do all of the "official" stuff, and I had to do all of the work. Well, I know I will be doing a LOT of work, especially in the beginning years before the boys can read fluently, but I get to do the "fun" work, too, and that is exciting.
I know I have mentioned this family before to many of you, but hop on over to Angela's blog at www.thepaintedhouse.blogspot.com to read more about their struggles and triumphs over 32-year-old Clayton's Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. They are a young couple with three precious children who are 4, 3 and less-than-a-year, and they recently moved to a new state so that CLayton could start his ophthalmology practice, and also recently decided to homeschool Ashton, their 4-year-old. Then the cancer struck, and they have put their lives on hold to fight it. They have even begun a strict vegan diet, and you can check out her dinner blog with tons of great vegan and non-vegan recipes at www.dinnersready.blogspot.com. They appreciate any prayers on behalf of Clayton's health and their family's sanity as they go through all of this. So check it out and say a prayer for someone you don't even know! God can do amazing things if we only ask Him.
That's all for today, I am going to go look at my homeschool magazine now! Have a fabulous day.

Funky Hair

After the boys' bath tonight, they requested the luxury of sitting on the big bed and having Mama use the blow dryer on them until they were nice and toasty warm. Griffin especially likes this, and he has recently become aware of the fact that when he sits still for me, I can actually make his hair do some pretty fun stuff!! Tonight was no exception, so after he got warmed up from his bath, I worked extra hard creating this masterpiece.

He just came out of his room for the third time tonight, and the masterpiece is beginning to flatten. First time: bathroom. Second time: he forgot to take his imaginary worms (????) into bed with him; he had left them in my room, so he carefully collected them and deposited said worms into a purple tube, and set the tube beside his bed. Third time: he was sad because I didn't rub Sammy's back. I say, "Is Sammy asleep?" "Yes," he says. "Well," I say, "Don't worry, Daddy will rub his back tomorrow night. Okay?" "Okay," he says, and he goes back into his room.

Man, I would love to fall asleep to MY back being rubbed every night. I choose to sing to them instead of rubbing their backs. I know they don't like it as much, but I'll let Daddy keep his backrubs.

Mike is playing poker right now, and seeing as how it is 10pm and he isn't home yet (the game goes from 6:30-9:30), I am assuming he won 1st place and is playing in the second game. I usually get a phone call letting me know he is playing later, but oh well. At least he is having fun.

Okay, little G. is out of bed again. Time to interfere in this negative cycle! I wonder what it is this time...