365 Day 60

Leap Day!

Since the day only happens once every four years then this was a good way to spend it. 

Laundry Lessons

I wash all the clothes and the kids then put their own clothes away. I spend my time, money, and energy to wash the clothes properly and they are responsible to for putting them away properly. I personally hate folding so all the kids have mostly closet space. Even the 2yo can hang up a shirt. I have demonstrated how it is to be done and when I find things not done correctly (clean clothes shoved in the dirty hamper, under the bed, back of closet, etc) then I give them a warning and show them again. If after the warnings (usually 3) I am still finding things out of place on the rare occasion I venture into their rooms then I know that they need more practice putting clothes away. This is the case today.

It started this morning when Mr. Edward complained that he had no pants left in his closet. I thought this was very strange since he got 5 pairs for Christmas and it was only 4 days of dirty clothes in the hamper but it's not the first time his pants have gone AWOL and I have yet to find his hiding spot. On the same note all last week Mr. Mann kept telling me how he had no socks even though he got 20 pairs for Christmas.

Then, while doing the laundry I spotted clean socks still folded together in Mr. Mann's hamper. Into their room I traveled to dump all of Mr. Mann's socks out for him to practice putting them away correctly. In the process of that I discovered more socks behind his bed and his pants and even more socks thrown on the top shelf of his closet. I then began to remove all his clothing from the hangers for him to practice.

Once a few pieces of clothes were out of the closet I discovered three pairs of Mr. Edward's jeans shoved on the middle shelf behind his brothers shirts. 

Three!!!

 I went on to find more socks under the bed, random shirts shoved in drawers, and 4 broken hangers. There is now one closet filled with very empty hangers and two beds hidden somewhere under a mountain of clean clothes. Good time to remove the outfits that are too small. Two birds, one stone, love it!

365 Day 59

Laundry Day Lessons. 

365 Day 58

Making a fast dinner out of the backpacking meals we never got the chance to use. Somehow it felt wrong to dump the pot of water when we were done instead of making hot cocoa.

365 Day 57

I let my laundry get a little over my head, so today I finally made my laundry soap and caught back up. Everything is super clean, my house smells great, and I just saved a bunch of money. *insert car insurance joke here*

365 Day 56

Friday Night Date: 

At home, playing computer games together into the wee hours of the morning. 

4am is a perfectly respectable bed time...

365 Day 55

Dinner at Zelda's for 7 people: $45
Dessert at Rick's for 7 people: $35
Remembering to buy two glasses of milk: Priceless

Magic

I realized today just how sad I'm going to be when I loose my magic. One day, Mama's kisses won't cure every tear.

Bug is such a sweet little girl and yet she's so tough, too. She can face plant into something, get up and keep going like nothing happened. When she does cry it's usually because she broke skin or bruised.

365 Day 54

No kids. For the first time in 2 years I have nothing planned but just some "me time" with a good book. Time well spent.

365 Day 53

Making my favorite Colcannon soup. I still have several potatoes and a whole head of cabbage I need to add to the pot. I think I need to invest in a bigger stockpot.

365 Day 52

Breakfast "minty meal" with my little one

365 Day 51

After a long and lazy Presidents day at home she relaxes with her Leapster Tangled game.

365 Day 50

Traditional after bath grooming. This cat cares....

365 Day 49

Don't leave a toddler unattended near a chocolate peanut butter pie or she may not be able to resist licking it.

365 Day 48

Doing her homework on the 'B' packet- hole Poking with a large push pin. I was blown away with how accurate she was for her very first time. She traced the letters perfectly!

365 Day 47

I'm not sure why the early evening light in my bathroom is so inspiring to me but I'm not complaining either.

365 Day 46

No you can't have my iPod, but you can take a picture

365 Day 45

Safely behind my camera and yet in front of it at the same time. 

365 Day 44

Every week I fail at the challenge and usually even at the theme. This week is self portrait week and all about Me! I'm stepping out of my comfort box and standing on the other side of the lens.

365 Day 43

Our good friends made the drive to our house for dinner and in exchange our furniture gave their little boy his first bloody nose.

365 Day 42

Two of my multiple crafts I'm working. The mail box for the 'post office' kit and my Alphabet Soup klink can. Obviously I still need to attach the flag and the Velcro for the mail kit and I need to decorate the can and cut the hole in the lid for the letters. Hopefully I'll have finished projects to show soon. 

365 Day 41

Woke up with a cold but that didn't stop me from working on some crafts this afternoon. I finished my magnetic chalkboard for the kids and now I just need to hang the bucket for the chalk and magnets. 

365 Day 40

It was a rough start to the day for me with a migraine that wouldn't go away. Luckily for me I was blessed with an angel for a child who happily played with her 'bean box' while Mommy rested her head. I'll get her dressed and out of her jammies before we leave the house *again*, I promise.

365 Day 39

It's true that you can't expect everyday to be a good day for everyone and while the rest of us had an uneventful day Mr. Edward came home with a detention slip for his behavior.

1. Keep hands, feet, and objects to yourself
2. Listen to and follow directions the first time
3. Be kind and show respect for yourself, others, and property
4. Show responsibility for your behavior and choices

According to the teacher there have been lots of warnings lately and she was finally forced to write him up. I wish we would of been informed of the previous minor infractions and not just told about it once it escalated to him hitting students. 

I find it ironic that one of the reasons I want to homeschool Lady Flynn is because teachers have to spend so much of their day keeping the students on task and behaving appropriately and yet one of those very students lives in our house.  

This is the second detention slip I've ever seen in my life and they've both come home this year from the same child. I believe that this just means there's room for improvement so I shall stay positive. I really hope this is the last one we see at least for this year.

365 Day 38

It was such a long and grumpy day today. We're still exploring the no nap thing but that didn't make this afternoon any easier. This evening after dinner Daddy let her watch "Repunz".  Not even halfway though the movie she finally settled down to curl up on the couch then drifted to sleep. Oh, thank you.

365 Day 37

The color sorting bears I ordered came in this afternoon. She loved them so much more than I expected. 

From watching her I learned that if you've been playing for so long that your legs get tired you can rest them by laying on the ground and still increase your possible fun. Good to know

Stony Weekend

Getting out of nap time is so hard. I'm not ready for her to be done with her daily naps but she thinks she is. Most days nap time is an argument and when I give up she ends up crashing at the most inopportune moments like in the car before we get home from the store. At least today she fell asleep on the way to the Delta so she got a true short nap. 

It may have been Superbowl Sunday but I didn't care about the game at all. We had an afternoon with our best friends planned all week and a silly game where grown men in spandex chase around a pig skin and jump on each other wasn't going to stop me. I think I've realized I need adult time, and since they have such similar circumstances to our own family it makes it so easy to relate to them. The fact that they are phenomenal cooks certainly doesn't hurt either.

I had such a fantastic time and kids got the chance to run outside like the wild creatures leaving all of us in great moods. I was surprised how well all the kids played together, even the little ones. At one point they pulled out twister and while the three older kids tried to play, the two youngest ones kept getting in the way but nobody got mad. I was so proud of them all!

We didn't get home until after normal bedtimes but everyone went right to sleep without complaint. 

Fail

Big. Fat. FAIL. Crazy busy weekend so I'll be updating the blog tomorrow. I have 4 posts I started and didn't attach pictures to.  I'll get my butt in gear and finished this tomorrow when I'm rested.

365 Day 36

There's always a story when the picture doesn't make much sense. 5 kids with a 10 year age gap all playing twister together. Okay, the two youngest are more in the way than they are playing, but I'm counting it.

365 Day 35

We needed a late night shower to fix a morning mommy error. While trying to create princess hair for the baby I applied hairspray to a brush and brushed it in. It held her hair for a little bit but then she got something in her eye and all the water from rinsing it resulted in lots unending of eye pain. A quick shower after bed time and her pain was gone so that she could settle into dream land.

Watercolors

I love her sweet songs she sings when she's happy. 

She loved painting today! I'm so happy we'll be doing more of this.

365 Day 34

I've been scouring websites for a few months to find a good lesson plan for preschool and today I pulled out the first set of papers to try them on Little E. She tore through them WAY faster than I anticipated so I finally pulled out the water paints and let her go to town. She went paint crazy for over an hour before I was successful in prying her away from the brush.

365 Day 33

New clean page on the calendar and yet still so much electronic clutter. Only a few more days and at least I'll have one less phone to tote around.

365 Day 32

We tried some science experiments today starting with this one using milk, food coloring, and a toothpick with dish soap on it. The kids had such a blast we had to repeat it 4 times. 

We also made home made play-dough and and then used that play-dough to make an erupting volcano. Fun way to spend the evening with the kids.