Summer Fun - Swim Meets

Wow!  Almost a year since I've been on here.    Sometimes I read another blog and suddenly feel inspired which is what happened this time, so really I'm being a copy-cat :)   However, I thought I'd make this more of a photo blog.   We've been to a ton of fun places this summer so far and I've been taking pics all along.  I thought I'd start with yesterday and work backwards.  

Swim Meet

 ^ First thing in the morning it can be a little chilly while waiting for your event!

^ Swimming the breaststroke in a relay

 ^My big guy doing the butterfly.   Great form here!

 One of my peanuts doing the backstroke.    This is his first year doing swim team.   

 ^ Proof that they do actually care about one another every once in a while. 

 ^ On the starting blocks

 ^ Keep your eye on the prize

 ^ Waiting for the tag in a freestyle relay event.

 ^ "Hi mom!"

^ This poor girl and her teeth.  She has lost 4 now really close together and none of them have started popping through yet.   Makes me want to give her freckles and a straw hat :) 


Hope you like the photos.    I still have some people receiving this via email.   If you don't want to anymore, just let me know.    I know some of you I haven't been in contact with for quite a while (but that doesn't mean I don't still think about you!)   God bless!!!

We're not po' no mo'

I had no intention of writing here today.    As a matter of fact, I've had no intention of writing on this blog lately at all.   Then a friend closed up her blog today.   Made me sad.   So many times I head out to Facebook trying to 'connect' with people, but without really connecting.   Actually I'm more of a lurker... I actually try not to post much out there also.  However, I miss connecting with people... like really connecting.    What happened to talking with someone on the phone forever.   I know, I know, life has gotten busy.  We all have kids.   Who could have a normal phone conversation anyway.   But I miss sharing just normal daily activities with other people.   And not in a just post it on FB kind of way.   

So I remembered that Blogger has a 'Next Blog' button on the top of their tool bar.   I thought, I'm just going to go surfing on random blogs and see what I run into.   Surprisingly I was very encouraged.   EVERY blog I hit was from a Christian person discussing their family, their faith, and life in general.  Some were by pastors, moms, dads, young adults, the whole mix.    I noticed that some blogs like mine hadn't been updated in a while.   Some were even years old.    After browsing for a while I came back to my own blogs and started reading some of my old posts.

I was struck by the amazing path that God has brought me on and what all has been accomplished in the past years.   I read posts from my 'I'm Coming Home' blog that chronicles my journey in leaving corporate America and becoming a SAHM.    Near the end of that blog, I talked about the many things God was blessing us with at the time.   It made me realize how far we've come.


Today, we had a family night.   My husband works many many hours so that I am able to stay home, so as a compromise, we've made weekends off-limits for working.   However a friend really needed my husband's help this past Saturday.   My compromise was that we would have a big family night on Saturday night and go out to dinner with some of the $$ he earned Sat morning.   The place I have been most dying to go to recently is for a Japanese Hibachi dinner.   With our family, this meal easily costs over $100.   Even as much as I was craving the food there, I'm not really willing to spend $100 to go eat there because I think of all the other things we could do with that money.   However, one of the places locally has 1/2 price hibachi on Tuesday nights.   Soooo, we moved our family night to today.   

We enjoyed this awesome meal and then headed over to Chuck E Cheese to spend some left over tokens we've had for a while.   The kids had fun.  My husband and I had fun.  The food was delicious.   It was all in all an awesome night! 

I used to make comments to my kids that since I quit working we were poor.  (BTW, I highly suggest not doing this, but hindsight is 20/20)   So my kids just think we're poor now.   So as we were driving home from our hibachi dinner, I told my kids, "well guys, we aren't poor anymore, cause poor people NEVER get to have hibachi!"   LOL!  I'm kind of chuckling to myself even thinking that, but it's true. 

The reality is God has blessed us AMAZINGLY the past couple of months.  Oh sure money is still tight.   But the things we've been able to accomplish and spend money on has been WAY better than it was 2 years ago.   This fall every one of our children will be participating in some sports activity in one form or fashion.    It's a huge blessing that we are able to do that!!

So after all these events, I was really glad that I chronicled the journey we've been on.   It's encouraging to see how far we've come and how much God has provided and been there for us.  Which led me to want to write today's events down and remember just where we were today.   It may not always be this good, but it'll help me remember that God is always there and He has good plans for me!

(LOL, I just reread this post before publishing and the double negative in the subject is driving me crazy.  However, I'm going to just leave it cause it fits.  But I wanted to let y'all know, I noticed it :)

Homeschool Mom Moment

Yesterday, my husband asked me to wash his uniforms for work.   Of which, I gladly complied.   However, when he awoke and asked about his uniforms, I realized I had not dried them yet.   As I was quickly moving individual pieces of clothing into the dryer, I found a clean pair of uniform pants.  I started the dryer with a shirt in it and a few moments later also found a clean shirt already in a pile of folded laundry.   So imagine the dismay I felt when my husband realized today that I STILL had not dried the load of uniform clothes from yesterday.   Luckily, I had the shirt dry from yesterday and just had to dry a pair of pants.   However, it's moments like these that make me think I am SO bad at this job.  

From then, I swirled into a self pity mode of all the things I do wrong and can't keep up on.  Then a situation from church on Sunday came into my head.   My children were in Sunday School.   My husband stepped out of the sanctuary for a moment and inadvertently heard what was happening in the class.  Apparently, some of my children kept speaking out of turn and the teacher had to remind one of them THREE times to raise his hand before speaking.   I started to think "oh great, my children are the ones who can't raise their hands and act like civilized people".   I even asked my husband today if I could go back to work... somewhat half jokingly, somewhat hoping he'd say sure.   

So even later this evening... well into the early morning hours, I sat watching some TV.   I turned off the TV before heading to bed and just sat in the dark silence enjoying the light show that was happening outside.   I said a quick prayer, like a "what am I doing, Lord?"  type prayer.  

As I sat in the darkness, memories of a book club I attended last summer came flooding back.   We studied a book called "Home School Supermom, NOT".  In it, and in countless other stories I've heard from home school moms, we question our ability to do this.   We ask ourselves if we are messing up our children for life.   Will they get into college? and etc.   Over and over I've heard stories of moms who have asked these same questions and have gotten to the end and realized they DIDN'T mess up their kid.  And YES they were able to get into college.   And YES some people do have messy houses!! 

I felt encouraged just by the memories and I think the spirit of the Lord was ministering to me.  So I wanted to share my encouragement with others.   The devil wants to steal our joy and make us feel incompetent to do what God has called.    But through Him, we are able to do all things (Phil 4:13)  He has equipped us to do this great work (2 Tim 3:17, Heb 13:20-21).

I hope this encourages you to press on in whatever God has called you to at this moment.   It's probably not easy, but God has a purpose and a plan in it!   Press on toward the goal of the prize (Phil 3:13-15)!!

Cause my mother did it, and her mother did it....

Have you ever heard the story about the mother teaching her daughter how to make a roast.  She said first you cut off the two ends.  The daughter asked "why do you cut off the ends?"  The mother replied because that's how my mother taught me to do it.   So they went to the grandma and asked, "Why do you cut the ends off of the roast?"  She replied, "because that's how my mother taught me to do it".   So they go to great grandma and ask her, "why do you cut off the ends of the roast?".  She replied, "because my pan was too small! I had to cut off the ends to make it fit".  

So my correlation to this story?   My sons are tall for their age, but most of them have small waists.  My son got into the next size of pants for length, but the waist was too big.  Being the quick and frugal mom that I am, I rolled down his waistband to make it a little tighter.   Well now a few years later, he still insists on rolling his waistband down.   I just noticed that he even did it to his pajama pants!!  Ten years from now, when this is a big fashion fad, you'll know where it came from :)

So the bread yesterday turned out delicious!   So good in fact, that we made another batch yesterday.  We gave one loaf away and gobbled the second up quickly.   With a family of 7 people, a loaf doesn't go too far.   Even the two loaves from the next batch are almost gone this evening.  

K heading out for a worship practice.   Have a good night y'all!!

Summer Projects

Trying to do some organizing now that summer is here.   It's hard.   I'm a little overwhelmed.   I know if I just start picking away at something eventually progress will be made.  So here I go....   

Today I baked bread for the first time.   Now I feel like a "veteran home schooler"... well kind of :D     It's baking in the oven as we speak.  I'll let you know how it comes out.

It's been raining today and the boys baseball game got cancelled.   I'm kind of sad.   I actually love watching them play.  I've been keeping score this season too which has given me a whole new view on it.  I've been running stats for the team too.   Their record is 2-7 right now, so we're hoping to get more wins!!! 

Now that summer is here, another change in our family has been the use of the Wii and computer.   We normally have a weekends only policy for electronics, but with all the extra time for the summer, we decided to adjust a little.   If the kids do extra chores, not their normal ones, they can earn Wii time.   Never have I had children volunteering to hand wash my kitchen floor and sort laundry!!   I think I could get used to this!   Just wish there was more I could just "send them off" to do without supervision.   This place would be immaculate!

My other summer project is painting our front stairway.   I've always envisioned this kind of mural in there of a nature scene.  Now I am NOT an artist... so we'll see how this all comes out.   I usually have these great pics in my head and are sorely disappointed when I'm not able to make it happen.  I think I have my expectations set properly this time though.   I'm just now painting the base blue color that will be the sky.  I decided to let my 9 and 10 year old help.  Oy yoy yoy... just a little stressful.   Pretty sure I'm going to go back to doing it on my own :)

My daughter is working on a loose tooth.  This will be her first one out.   She's a little sensitive to pain, so she's already been "working" on it for days!  It's quite loose.  Maybe today she'll let me do the string thing and just YANK it!!  Ha, if that happens you can be sure there will be a youtube video to follow.

Hope you are all having a blessed and relaxing day!

Shout out birthday to my dear friend Cat!!  We don't get to see each other as much as I'd like these days, but I still cherish your friendship!!  I hope you have a fantastic birthday and may God pour out his blessings on you this next year!   Love you girl!

Oats

To Barbie or not to?

My daughter has been really getting into dolls lately with some of her friends.   Most of it has been doll house dolls of the smaller type.   So my daughter gets this gift card to Walmart and I suggest to her to buy a Barbie or some Barbie clothes.    I didn't see any other doll stuff that looked 'better' or 'worse' than Barbies (okay actually I do think there are dolls that are worse than Barbie).  But in that moment, I remembered comments from people being very against Barbie and I second guessed myself.   It's not that I'm trying to please other people, but I have had a few of those parent moments where you think something isn't going to be a big deal for your kid and then you look back and think "wow, how did I get here".   I don't want to have to take the Barbie's away in the future because they are causing issues.  So do you think Barbie's can really cause image issues in girls?   Do they as a whole portray a lifestyle that I would not want my daughter to emulate?   I really don't know on this one, so thoughts??

The summer has started out as a busy one for us.   We seem to have these months throughout the year where things ending and new things beginning overlap and its just pure craziness!   We are finishing up baseball season in the next couple weeks and starting other summer activities.   All four boys are playing baseball this year.   Luckily, because of the way their ages fell, we only have to deal with 2 different teams.    I also signed my three littles up for a theater class.  The class runs for 2 1/2 hours on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  My oldest is joining the swim team and is considering joining 4-H for rabbits.   Yes, this means lots of driving around for me.   I really don't mind though and it's been kind of fun so far.   Ask me again at the end of June!  

Our bunnies have finally reached 8 weeks old.   We ended up losing one a few weeks ago.   It was the one that my oldest wanted to keep, so he took it really hard.   Hopefully we'll be able to get rid of the others easily on craigslist.   I'm hoping to not have 5 rabbits in a few weeks!!   We did find out that we have 2 females and 1 male.   The male has already been separated from mama!   We don't need this whole fiasco happening again!! 

Tons of other things are swirling around my head to write about, but I think I'll just stop at that for tonight.  

Hope you all have a blessed week!!

Five months of happenings

Wow, it has been WAAYYYY to long since I've been on here.   I actually think about posting stuff often and back in February, I actually had a list going of things I wanted to share, but I've found it hard to get the time to sit and post.   Well I will try and cover some of the things I've thought about over the past 4 months.   Readers beware... it's a long one

The Sofa

A while back we bought a couch off of craigslist.   It was already old and worn, but with our family of boys, it was perfect.   Just after a year of having it, one of the recliners permanently broke and was stuck open.   Additionally the fabric was wearing immensely and it just started looking bad.   I was sick of this old beat up couch in my living room so I decided to get rid of it.  There was just this one thing.... I had no replacement.   I felt like the kids had been mistreating the furniture, so we decided to move on and went couch-less for a few months.   At first, it was cool.  The living room was wide open and the kids enjoyed having tons of space.   After a while though, it got annoying.   My husband and I were sitting in office chairs to watch movies, and that just got old.    My parents had been storing two couches in their garage and offered them to us.   One is an all white Victorian style couch and the other was a recliner couch that the back had broken on one of the recliners.    Since all white did not seem like a good fit for our family and the recliner was broken, we declined their offer.   That is, until this whole situation really got annoying.   So we decided to move up the couches.   That same week, a woman from our church heard we were couch-less and offered us an old leather bonded couch that the bonding was coming off.  The couch had a lot of life left in it, but didn't "look pretty" anymore.   With the way my boys are with couches, I figured, hey worse case it would last us a few months.   We took that couch too and threw a blanket over it to hide the peeling.   So we went from no couches to three in the matter of a few days.  

Crazy thing was that same week someone offered us 4 bar stools for our kitchen counter.   I have been looking for years... yes literally years, for 4 matching bar stools.   Who knew bar stools were so expensive??  even used!!  I had bought 2 stools from a co-worker about 2 years ago and after bringing them home realized only the kids could sit in them because they were too high.   So imagine my excitement when we are offered 4 matching (beautiful, I may add) bar stools for free!!  I felt so amazingly blessed that week!   I felt like, okay God, I see that you know even the things I "want" and will freely pour out your blessings!!

Birthdays

We have celebrated 5 birthdays since I last wrote.   Yes our family birthdays are heavy on the first half of the year.   My husband celebrated his birthday fairly uneventfully in February.  Two of my children celebrate March birthdays.   We started a cake decorating tradition a few years back and much to my sweat and tears we've tried to continue it.   My son didn't have a specific request this year, but asked to be surprised.  So we made him a drum birthday cake.  Funny thing was I put an 8 on the cake (after this picture obviously).  Then I'm laying in bed and suddenly realized he was actually 9!!!   I had to run out in the middle of the night to change the 8 to a 9 so he wouldn't see the mistake in the morning.   It's truly amazing how time flies!!

 The cool thing about this cake too was that it was checkered on the inside.   My son had given me this kit to make checkered cakes for my birthday or Christmas, so this was the perfect opportunity to use it.

My daughter dances ballet and we were going to make her a ballet cake and at the last minute she decided she wanted a road with a car on it.   My daughter is a girly girl!!   We were like "what???!!!! a road???"  I think this was all triggered by the stop sign candle she found in the drawer with the other candles.   So we obliged her request.   My husband did a fantastic job in making a S7 cake since her name starts with 'S' and she turned 7.   Who knew??  I think we'll look back on this one and laugh some day.  

The other two birthdays were celebrated just last week.    My babies are 5!!  I am officially the mother of school aged children.   We spent the week in the Outerbanks of North Carolina.   The boys got to spend their birthday at the beach.  

 

Since cake decorating is a crazy undertaking ( and messy too)... we fore go the cake decorating while on vacation for them and just do cupcakes.   I think the trade-off is fair.  I'll talk about vacation a little more later....

Movie Audition

Another exciting thing that took place was that one of my twins auditioned for a movie.   I saw an ad for blond haired, blue eyed boys ages 5 - 7 on a local news website.   I thought what the heck, let's try it.   At first I assumed they were filming the movie in Cleveland and looking for a local boy to fill the main role.   Then I found out the filming was in Canada and they had already done some auditions in other cities.   I figured we'd still go for it.  So one Sunday in April we headed out to Olmstead Falls to audition.   He had to learn some lines, which he did quite easily and the first verse to Amazing Grace.   The song was the hard part.   Try teaching a four, almost five year old, words like 'wretch'.   We played the song over and over and over for 5 days straight.    Everyone in the family was singing Amazing Grace quite regularly.   One comical thing came one day when I asked my son to sing it for me (hoping he finally had the words down).   He sang:
"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a witch like me".   Of course I started chuckling, when up pipes his twin brother in the back seat... "it's not witch, it's wench"  Oh man, did I lose it.   Too funny!!!

So we went for the audition, figuring there was a one in a million shot at getting it anyway, but what an experience.   Afterwards, I found out it was a nationwide search for the next "kid star".  Ha!!  Yeah, no way we're going to get that!!!!!  But like I said, it was an experience!

Here he is right after his audition.

Rabbits

Back to the birthdays for just a moment.   My oldest son had been asking for a while for a rabbit.   We really didn't want anymore pets (we already had 2 dogs, a hamster, and a bird), so we kept pushing him off without really putting down a firm 'no'.   When we got to my daughters birthday, she also had been asking for a pet - none of the ones we have "belong" to her.   My oldest son has been extremely responsible (of which I am super proud) for his bird and has regularly paid for its food, cage stuff, etc out of his own money.   For whatever reason I gave in to letting him have a rabbit since I figured he would take equally good care of it.   We decided to get him one (he was actually due a partial birthday gift from his birthday) and his sister one for her birthday.   We got 2 female rabbits and one cage with all the accessories.     Shortly after getting them, my daughters rabbit, Snowflake, started getting very aggressive.   At first she was aggressive with the kids and after a few days she was aggressive with the other female rabbit.   When she started biting Twitch, the other rabbit, I thought that was strange and wondered out loud if she was pregnant.  My husband thought I was crazy.  One week, on a Thursday, Snowflake bit Twitch enough that it actually injured her.   We decided to get another cage.   We looked on craigslist and one had been posted THAT morning.   We called and picked it up that afternoon.  Talk about another blessing from God!

A rabbits gestation period is 30-31 days, so when we hit four weeks (28 days), I thought my worries were unfounded.   This is the Sunday after buying the new cage.   Then it happened.   My son came into my room early on April 15 and said "Snowflake is acting really weird.  She's pulling out her fur and it's in her mouth."   It sounded to me like she was nesting, so I quickly grabbed a cardboard box and went to put it in her cage.  Sure enough, she was acting VERY weird.   She was running all over the cage in a frantic way and pulling out her fur.   By 12:30 that afternoon she had given birth to 4 baby bunnies.   Wow did we get a little more than we bargained for!!!!   the babies are now 4 weeks old and SO DARN CUTE!!!!  Of course the kids want to keep some of the babies... yeah, we'll see how that goes.  

Here they are at 2 weeks old

Vacation

Okay, lastly, vacation.   Last year, we took a trip to the Outerbanks, NC and had such a good time that we decided to do it again this year.   My parents treat us by renting the house big enough for multiple families.   This year my sister, her family, my family and my parents went.   We go early in May since it is off season and much cheaper.   The weather can be a little iffy since it's still spring time.   We were supposed to have rain for three of the days, however, God blessed us again.   The "big storm" ended up splitting around us, so we only had an occasional sprinkle here or there.   We did get just enough rain one day to have a beautiful full double rainbow.  

We were snapping away with pictures when I grabbed my niece and said lets drive down to the ocean to get a picture with the water.   The double part of it was gone by then, but we did get this great shot. 

 We had a great time relaxing at the house, frolicking on the ocean and cruising the beaches looking for wild horses.   We rented a jeep the one day to go off road on the beach.

 My husband drove all 15 of us in shifts down the beach to look for horses and enjoy the unpaved part of the Outerbanks.   Unfortunately, my shift (the first one) was the only one to not see any horses.   I have seen them before and didn't think the twins would remember too much anyways, so we just left it like that.   He did get some pretty pictures of them on the beach however.

 

Here's my sister and I



So hopefully I've caught you up on our first half of 2013.   I hope all is well with your families and I look forward to seeing or hearing from you soon!

Peace out!
Oats