Dear Husband...

Dear R,

You truly amaze me...and I can't help but adore you. You worked all day, and came home to a wife in a lousy mood. You let me lay down and read, taking care of dinner and kids. We planned to set up Christmas docorations, and you did it by yourself. And it looks lovely. You didn't have to, you had every reason not too. But you did, to make me happy and feel loved.

I am truly a blessed woman to call you mine.

A

UGH!!

My house is a messy...

I don't want to cook dinner, again.

My tree is up, but the ornaments keep 'falling' off (I think they have help)

My house isn't decorated for Christmas, and I can't seem to care.

I'm tired, and my ears hurt from the cold and noise of all the kids.

I don't want to change one more poopy diaper, and I smell 'something'

I miss my kids, even though I've never met them and it doesn't make sense.

It's cold, and there isn't even snow to enjoy.

I tired of hearing "I'm telling on you" and footsteps headed my way.

I know I should be thankful for my home, my family, my life...

but today I'm just worn out by it. By the housework, by the cooking, by the holiday preparations, by the kids, by the cold, by the homework battles, by life in general.

I know this too shall pass, and that God is faithful to give us strength.

I'm just being honest, it can't all be roses folks.

So I'm kinda pouty today.

It's not very attractive, and I don't like it anymore in myself than in my kids.

I think I'll make cookies for snack, and pizza for dinner.

And some grace for myself.

Permission to have a pouty day, to not play Christmas music, to put a movie on for the kids, and to ignore the floors that desperately need a broom right now.

I'm going to bed early tonight, tomorrow is a new day.

Good Morning,

I hope everyone's monday morning is going well.... Here's a run down on mine. This will either make you tired (which is had for me), thankful for your morning, or want to bring me a cup of Dutch Bro's coffee (I'd like a peppermint mocha, please?).

7:05am -crawl out of bed late, while DJ tries to get me to buy a new car with no money down
7:20am-out of the shower, waking up and talking to God
7:21am-P bumps into me, puts her long arms around me and whines she doesn't 'feeeellll goooood' -which can mean she's sick, or tired, or just doesn't want to go to school. It's up to me to decide. Send her lay on my bed until she can get in the bath
7:25am-CN comes in, she's in tears -Science homework isn't done because she didn't mention it all weekend, and just now remembered it's due today. Bummer for her-send her to hurry and get a shower so she can finish this morning
7:30am-shoes on, 1st child shows up, start making toast and peeling oranges.
7:35am-2nd child shows up, CN out of shower and finishing homework
7:40am-3rd child shows up, P in the bath, CN done with homework and making lunch,
7:55am-4th child shows up, P is in her room trying to put her pj's back on. Convince her to get dress and start her day and then we'll decide if she can make it through the day, finish getting breakfast on the table
8:00am-finish dishes, start dishwasher, P comes to the table to eat and starts to perk up, start coffee
8:10am-5th and 6th children show up, don't like oranges and whiny from a long weekend
8:20am-dog throws up, hear kids yelling and moaning...make myself put down freshly poured cup of coffee and go clean up
8:25am-P finally done eating, ask her to finish getting ready for school-reminding her she has 20 mins till time to leave, go to get P's shoes out of dryer- forgot to start dryer last night so they are wet, start dryer and pray they are dry by the time to leave
8:30am-7th child shows up late, with 4 bags of stuff from a weekend with dad and throws it in the entry way, remember cup of coffee and sit down to take a drink and then get up to pull out canned food for kids to take to school. P makes a tower of cans on the counter.
8:35am-Remind P to make a lunch, and she comes out with her new Christmas shoes to wear to school -umm, no. P gets mad that it takes to long to tie her tennis shoes and she isn't going to be ready. Tell her her slip ons are in the dryer, and to make her lunch. She goes in the opposite direction of the kitchen where the food is.
8:36am-P comes out mad she can't find her lunch box (that has been missing at school for 2 weeks). Remind her it's at school and to get a plastic sack. She again goes in the opposite direction as the kitchen. Go to see what she is doing and she is putting on shoes in laundry room. Go make her lunch, she yells at me not to put baby carrots in it, put baby carrots back in fridge and pull out snap peas. Write a loving note to her for her lunch, reminding myself I do love this child.
8:38am-put P's lunch in her backpack, find dirty shirt and wonder how long it's been in there, leave it for now and hope I remember to pull it out after school. P has shoes on! Ask her to get her coat, she goes to coat closet pulls out a random coat that belongs to another child and says she's wearing it. Ummm, no. "Find your own coat, Please." Tell CN, child #2 and 3 to get ready to go to school. Move pile of suitcases to couch- how much stuff do they really need for 2 days?
8:40am-Walk P back to her room, pull coat off the floor and put it on her. Give her backpack and she walks out door dragging it. Tell her to wear backpack or she'll put a hole in it- there are cans of food, remember. She yells that it won't fit on her back with a coat on. I'm sure they didn't think of that when they designed backpacks. I put her backpack on her back, everyone else is at the end of the driveway waiting for her. Send her off with a kiss, thankful she had an "okay" morning and is going to school.
8:45am-sit down with cup of coffee...and finish it. Now to tackle the 5 loads of laundry to fold, change a diaper, clean bathrooms, and make shopping list. And maybe another cup of coffee...I've certainly earned it.

School Conferences...

Those days off of school I braced myself for- they were the result of school conferences. I seem to remember going to school, and then conferences in the evenings. I don't remember getting days off for conferences, but maybe I'm wrong. It just seemed that when I was a student the goal was to be in school as much as possible. Now it seems to be okay to have the kids not there for teachers meetings, grading, conferences, inservice, and holidays. I LOVE teachers, and have the utmost respect for them. It's not a digg on them. But common sense says that if you want kids to learn they need to be in a classroom with a teacher.

So that has alot to do with nothing really. Both CN and P have great teachers. Really good teachers are one of the biggest blessings in a parents life. CN has this unique problem - she likes to read at the determent of her other work. She rushes through her assignment so she can pull out a book and read. This also has changed since I was in school. We had free reading time, and otherwise you didn't pull out a book to read. If you finished math early, there was an extra worksheet to do. If you finished science early, homework was your fate. You didn't rush to get done, it only meant more work. So we have given the teacher permission to take reading away at school. It also seems odd to have to 'give permission' to the teacher to take action when there is a problem. It also seems odd to take away reading. However, she has to focus on using her school time wisely - because next year it will really matter. Jr. High is like that. We are needing to focus on math facts in a major way over the next month. So times test have made their way into our daily routine. We had times test in school too- and I remember hating them. That hasn't changed much.

P is doing well also, all things considered. Her eye issue has resulted in delayed reading. She is being treated for Convergence Insufficiency. Unfortunately she has developed a bad taste for reading. Which is soooo sad for us. R and I are huge readers, CN obviously is a reader. What will P do instead of reading around here. Besides, I have books I've saved since I was a girl for her to read. She is in a focused reading group, and we focusing on it at home. She also has been referred for a speech evaluation. Her great teacher noticed a issue with 's' and 'th' sounds. When she brought it up, you could tell she was bracing herself for an argument from us. I started to laugh. Of course she needs speech therapy. We've already done Occupational therapy, and vision therapy. We want her therapy to well rounded after all. So we were more than happy to have FREE therapy. That is a new experience for us - and were more than happy to accept.

So overall - good things to hear, always something to work on. And at least we have great teachers who are on our side and willing to work with us.

Family Drama...

Laundry Soap -Update

Laundry Soap ALA Anita...
I love this stuff. It's a little cumbersome, but I think it's worth the effort. I have a 5 gallon bucket of a gel like substance. It's somethink akin to The Blob... and smells really good. I kept an old laundry soap container. I filled it halfway up with The Blob, added water and shook. It sounds easy- but required a funnel, a stick and patience. I made quite a mess on the laundry room floor. However, since I never mop it - I figured it was due to be cleaned. Next time I'll put a towel down.

So I think it's doing a great job at cleaning the clothes. Better than the other laundry soaps I've tried.

I've always been frustrated by how quickly clothes mildew in the washer. Try as I might, sometimes my laundry sits in my washer a few hours, or even overnight. I get distracted and forget. It happens alot actually. In a few hours they would smell - and I'd rewash. Then I learned to spray Frebreeze in the dryer with them and that usually helped. But only if it had only been a few hours. Overnight meant they HAD to be rewashed. With this soap, no mildew. Maybe I should experiment and see how long it would take. But we've gone up to 48 hours at this point, and they were fine. Seriously AWESOME!! That alone makes it worth it.

So, the homemade laundry soap is here to stay. I'm thinking it could be fun to experiment with. Maybe I'll give it out as Christmas presents. I really like this stuff! Do you think others would be offended to get laundry soap? Would you be? Does it say "You have dirty clothes, you stink, you need help?" I wouldn't want it to say that...yeah - I guess it does.

Thanksgiving Feast...

We are hopefully going to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast a day early. Myself, and the six children running around. Wait - make that seven children running around. The turkey is in the roaster. We've cut up celery -everyone cutting a stalk. We've got stuffing ready for the oven. Now we are on break until it's time to do the potato's. Then the turkey should be done, and we can set a beautiful table.

So the girls are all playing in their bedroom - Barbies. C and P have already done war this morning. So the sounds of them playing together sweetly- well, it's sweet. Much sweeter than slamming doors and names being called.

Back to Thanksgiving Feast. I'm not sure what made me think I should cook a Thanksgiving meal with 6+ children. Other than I remember the joy of bringing the meal together with my Mom and Nana. We travel to R's family for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We rarely cook an entire meal in our home. I want the girls to know how to make a holiday meal. I want them to know how much work goes into a holiday meal. I want them to remember cooking with Mom. Not just showing up and an amazing meal is magically on the table. I want them to remember the holidays as time spent together, in the kitchen cooking and visiting. Talking about where the receipe comes from, the best way to make sweet potato's (it doesn't involve anything that comes out of a can or marshmellows), and how fortunate we are to have so much.

So we are off to peel potato's, bake the stuffing, get the green beans started. The turkey smells amazing. And apple pie is waiting on the counter for dessert. YUM!!!