"air quotes"

Church- good as always, something I needed to hear, now if only I can apply it.

Mom’s-good food, great company. Sorry I had to take off and didn’t get to help clean up, I’ll do it next week. And now you have it “in writing”

YOGURT MAKING CLASS- So much fun! Can’t wait to try it, and yes you may get some from me if it turns out good.

Grocery shopping-The joy of getting to go alone was only slightly diminished by the crowdedness of the store.

Dinner- Babe made it; it was Mexican chicken skillet with yellow rice and grilled/sautéed zucchini. It was delicious and got a 3 out of 3 kid rating (the other two were full from crackers)

Friends over to play game- Good time with good friends, made me realize how little I paid attention to the world around me as a teenager. (We played trivia pursuit 90’s edition)

Frozen hot chocolate?

Another snow day? What is a mom to do with 5 stir crazy kids? Send them out to play in the snow of course. Only two of them wanted to go out in it, and that didn’t last very long. Whenever my kids go out in the cold they want hot chocolate to warm them up when they come in. After reading all of the snow ice cream posts today it made me want to try to make some, but we didn’t have the right ingredients for any of the fun ice creams. So I decided to make some frozen hot chocolate, it must be possible they sell it at serendipity in NYC, however I’ve never had it and I hear they keep the recipe a secret, so I just thought I would make my own concoction. Here is what I did

Ingredients you will need

 

I put my water in the microwave, 1 minute for every cup you make, 1 cup per envelope.

While that was heating up I put the hot chocolate powder and the marshmallows (we only had the large ones for some reason) in the blender. Then when the water was done I poured it on top and blended it all together. *WARNING* make sure your lid is on real tight, somehow mine kind of exploded out of the lid and got hot chocolate all over my counter, it wasn’t scalding so no one got hurt.

Once your hot chocolate is ready (I guess it really is more like warm chocolate) pour some into a bowl

Then add scoops of snow

 (if you do it the other way it melts the snow too fast and just makes cold chocolate soup)

The snow will suck up all the hot chocolate and will magically turn the snow brown

Serve

And enjoy

Snow days

New curtains J bought for me :)

Pictures from all the snow we got.

comes all the way up to the first bar of the fence

big boys venturing out

see the layer of ice on everything

Ice + snow = clean house.

Today when we woke up everything was covered in ice. Jeremy went ahead and went in to work. He came home a couple hours later. It felt like Saturday most of the day. It then started snowing around noon and didn’t stop for seven hours. It is very pretty but I’m glad I had nowhere to be.


We spent most of the day cleaning. Jeremy did a couple of odd jobs that had been needing to be done. Plus he bought new curtains for the living room and a new rod to put them on. It looks great, I will take pictures tomorrow and then you can see the snow too.

We had hamburgers for dinner, they were delicious, and the babies had chicken nuggets. Everybody enjoyed their dinner.

Here are some pictures I meant to post on Thursday, from Bikes balls and you.

One of mine (Micah I think) and one of Dana's

Hosea-who always stops and poses for me

Dana's little boy Gavin in motion

Best friends "Abra" and "Gabin". At one point they had lost each other and were both running around in opposite directions yelling for each other, it was very cute.

Actually playing together instead of fighting!!

Ice Storm 2010-day 1

We are expecting an ice storm so I am blogging early today in case we lose power.

I took the babies and Avrah to bikes balls and you today; they had a blast as always.

Jeremy came home early because of the ice so I didn’t get much done.

I did get the hall/game closet cleaned out. I don’t have a before picture so the after picture would not be nearly as impressive.

Dinner is breakfast pizza with cantaloupe, don’t know the kid rating yet, but I’m sure it will be around 3 out of 5. Just a guess.

Also I am starting a postcard project, so if you would like to be involved and send me a postcard that would be great!

Stay warm.

Potty talk

I got a potty chair yesterday and let the babies sit on them last night. Today I put them on 4 times. They really do like sitting on the potty. I have the potty chairs set up in the bathroom. Our bathroom is set up so that the toilet and tub are separate from the sink. So I put their chairs in the sink room, we have a little stool and that is where I sit, now if for any reason I need to get up and go get something, they get up too. Micah feels that the door needs to be closed so if I get up and go get something, like a diaper or another toy/book because they are fighting over the one, Micah will stand right up and shut the door behind me but he forgets to sit back down and promptly climbs up on the stool and of course if he is not going to sit on his potty then neither is Hosea. So in the less than a minute that it takes for me to get whatever it is, there is havoc in the bathroom. Neither of them have gone in the potty yet, however as soon as I got their diapers back on Micah pooped (twice this happened) and once while I was getting Micah’s diaper back on him Hosea stood up and peed on the floor. I really didn’t expect much from them today as we are just practicing and getting used to the potties.


Tonight we had roast beef paninis (from the left over roast from Monday) with tabouli and potato salad. 3 out of 5 kid rating.

OH and I have a correction from last night it turns out that Micah did eat his lasagna (Jeremy was feeding him) there was a lot on his tray and the floor so I just assumed he didn’t eat, I stand corrected.

Great news!

I have great news! My old friend that just broke read about it here. After reading yesterdays blog my sister my pampered chef consultant called me and told me that if I sent in a palm sized piece of my broken bar pan that pampered chef would send me a new one for free! Isn’t that awesome?!

I got to hang out with my best friend today, and go to lunch with my two bestest friends. Turns out the babies do not like sushi, but I do so that is ok.

I got another potty chair today so now we can let the potty training begin. Tonight after dinner and before their bath I had the boys sit on their potties and read them the “once upon a potty” book to them. I don’t think they are ready yet, but just thought I would introduce them to it.

Oh dinner was Lasagna and it got a 3 out of 5 kid rating. For some reason the babies don’t like any kind of pasta except for spaghetti, very strange.

Hello to some old friends, goodbye to some new ones

My mom had raccoons in her attic. Not today, a while back. They tore everything up and made a nice home for themselves up there. So everything up there had to be replaced. This prompted my mom to go through some boxes that had been up there for a while. In one box were some of mine and my sisters old toys, I went through it and picked out some of the ones I remembered fondly and that didn’t have too much wear and tear on them, and that I thought Avrah might like to play with. I got them like last month, but I finally got around to getting them cleaned up.

Here are some of our old my little ponies

And a stuffed elephant music box (who was mine and whose name is Freedom)

I dug them out and cleaned them all up while Avrah was at school. She was so excited to see them, and after her nap she played with them for a long time. She has now latched on to Freedom, I didn’t really hang on to him for her, I was keeping him because he was mine. But I’m glad that he has found life again. I’m a big Toy story fan, can you tell?

These toys aren’t considered “vintage” are they? I’m not that old.

Here are some old toys that Jeremy’s mom gave us a couple years ago that the kids still love to play with.

Tonight we had Portabella pot roast with Wide egg noodles and steamed carrots and rolls. It got a 3 out of 5 kid rating. The younger boys only ate rolls (see I’m trying not to call them babies any more since someone brought it to my attention that they won’t like that when they get older.)

Unfortunately while making dinner I had to say goodbye to a dear friend. It had served me well and was one of my favorites. It was my pampered chef bar pan. It broke in half. This was my fault. I had turned on the wrong burner (the front) for the noodles and then realized it and turned the right one on (the back), but then left the front on thinking I’ve got to steam the carrots so I’ll use that burner. Got distracted put the rolls on my beloved bar pan, about that time I hear one of the kids yell that the babies were in the bathroom, so I run to go get them out of there, and then Avrah comes in and tells me there is something going on in the kitchen that I HAVE to see. It was the broken bar pan on the hot burner. And the rolls that were touching the burner (our stove is electric) were on fire. I turned off the burner and grabbed a wet rag and threw the burning rolls into the sink (see I’m learning, I didn’t throw water on them) and salvaged the other ones. But my poor bar pan. Now you know don’t put stoneware on hot burners, they will break.

Football? What's a football?

Relaxing day at home? Nope not today. We went to church, then to mom’s for lunch, and then we went to Michaels to get some supplies. I got some circular knitting needles that I am excited about trying out, also all their Christmas stuff was 90% off, I got a wreath that was originally $50 for $4.99.

 All their ribbon was on sale too, I restrained myself and only bought two rolls, it was a $1 a roll, one is red and I’m going to use it on some cute Valentines things for the kids’ teachers. And the other has some pink and green and red ribbons, I figure I can use it for St. Patrick’s Day.


We are going to start implementing a new disciplinary/rewards system that one of my friend’s blogged about that they were using and it worked well for them, so we are going to try it out. You can read about it here* (if you are reading this on facebook see the link at the bottom). So we bought some little dishes and some colored stones for the three big kids.

Avrah's, Judah's, Josiah's

I went grocery shopping with Judah and Avrah. That was much easier than with all of them. While we were at the store my wonderful husband made dinner and had it almost ready to eat when we got back. It was seafood jambalaya without the seafood. So I guess it was just jambalaya. It got a 4 1/2 out of 5 kid rating. Why the ½? 3 of them picked out the meat (turkey polish sausage) and 1 complained it was too spicy but ate it anyway, just very slowly with lots of drinks. (It was not spicy, that child is just all about the drama)


I'm looking forward to a not so busy week. Although then my blogs might be boring and you may have to endure more subpar poetry.






*http://ambrosegirls.blogspot.com/2010/01/family-jewels.html

Play dates, chess tournament, dance party and more.

Today was the chess tournament. Sign in this morning was at 8:00. Judah decided that he wanted IHOP for breakfast, because they are having their all you can eat pancake special. Anytime there is an all you can eat anything Judah takes it as a personal challenge. Last time he ate 7 pancakes. If you’ve seen the kid you know this is impressive, he is about 4 foot and about 57 lbs. Not very big. Today he only ate 5. Jeremy took Judah and Josiah to IHOP and then to the chess tournament.

I had a twin mom play date at the mall to go to around 9, so I took the other 3 kids there. Memaw and Pawpaw (Jeremy’s dad and mom) came and picked up Avrah to take her to go see “The Princess and The Frog”. Then I took the babies and picked up some lunch for J and the kids and went to the chess thing too. The kids were busy playing math games on the lap top and after we ate Jeremy had to go to class. An old friend from when Judah played soccer was there with her son and so I got to sit and catch up with her and I had my knitting stuff so I finished off my hat. I was done with it before, but when I showed someone who actually knew something about knitting they asked me “are you going to finish it” and I thought that I had already, but after they said something I noticed what they were talking about and now it is finished (all the loose threads are tucked away instead of sticking out everywhere) also I added braided tassels. SEE.

Meemaw and Pawpaw brought Avrah back to me at the tournament. We all got home just in time for the babies to go down for a nap. Most days Avrah will nap also, however when the big boys are home she won’t nap, because she knows they aren’t, even when they are quiet. So instead of napping she got into my make up and put it on all of her animals, it was actually a cover up stick but it looks like a lipstick so all her little animals got cover up lipstick. I hope it will come off in the wash.

While the kids were “resting”/napping I got some homework done. I took another history quiz and got a 100%, don’t be too impressed it was open book with the page number right next to the questions. Plus it was multiple choice and you get 1 hour for 10 questions. There is no reason to not get a 100%. Then I worked on some extra credit stuff and studied for the real exam that will be in about 2 weeks.

Dinner tonight was BBQ meatloaf with Cheddar/garlic mashed potatoes and salad. Surprisingly it got a 5 out 5 kid rating. The babies didn’t eat at first, but then they would eat it off of my fork, and then they wanted to feed themselves with my (Jeremy was feeding Hosea and I was feeding Micah so I guess it was our forks) fork. Somehow we ended up with their little baby forks and they had the big forks; the big kids thought that was funny.

After bath, and cleaning of the rooms, we had a short dance party, then we read our books and off to bed the kiddos went, and I am going to go to bed soon too. This week was hectic; hopefully this next week will not be so.

Dr.'s Apt.

Today I had to take Micah to the urologist where we found out that he has a communicating hydrocele and will need surgery. It isn’t painful for him so it isn’t urgent surgery but also it won’t get any better on its own and will only get worse. They will call me in a couple of weeks to set up a date. We will have to go to OKC, and he will be put under general anesthetic. For more information go here http://my.clevelandclinic.org/disorders/Hydrocele/hic_Hydrocele_Treatment_for_Children.aspx


Made a creamy chicken tortellini soup, I didn’t get any because I had a thing to go to but I heard it got a 2 ½ kid rating.

Bikes Balls and Me

We went to Bikes balls and you today. It was really fun for the kids; they loved it, for me, not so much. Usually a lot of my other twin mommies come and I at least have someone to talk to while the kids run free. There were a lot of other moms there, but most of them already had their own little clicks. If you are a mom and have ever been to anything social like this or to a park even, you know what I mean. It isn’t that other moms are rude or mean it’s just that they use this as their social time to catch up with their friends, not really to make new ones, or at least that is how it seems to me. Of course I’m a little less social then I would like to be, I would like to be able to just go up and start a conversation with someone new, but that’s not going to happen.

Avrah

Hosea stopped and posed for me

I could not get Micah to look at me

Hosea slam dunking it!

After that we went to eat lunch at Chic Fil A with Jeremy. The babies and Avrah actually ate and they gave us free parfait samples it was really fun.

Oh last night I made quiche and pear slices and sweet rolls, it got a 5 out 5 kid rating!! And Jeremy liked it too. Tonight I made tater tot casserole and even though I had to go to a meeting and didn’t get to eat it, the report that I got was that it also got a 5 kid rating, and Jeremy liked it too!

I finished my cuff/fingerless glove/sleeve or whatever you want to call it. I really like them and am almost wishing for colder weather again so I can wear them. I said ALMOST people!

A needed break

My wonderful husband downloaded one of the books I am reading for history for me. He knows how much I like to listen to audio books and so he found the book, it isn’t the text book but is required reading for this course. “Lies my teacher told me everything your American history textbook got wrong” by James W. Loewen, if you are interested. I’m not very far into it but I would highly recommend it. I am learning so much from it. I really do enjoy reading however when it is information I need to remember and important the reading goes a little bit slower for me. Not to mention all the distractions and interruptions.


Today I was able to get all the laundry put away and the house really cleaned; although the babies took every opportunity that my back was turned to get into something they weren’t supposed too. They climbed onto the table and dumped juice out of the cups, they broke a picture frame and took the pictures out of another one, oh and they pulled my laptop off the counter and somehow started ITunes so when I came in the room they were dancing around to MXPX dad will be proud to hear that. Good thing they took a nap, during that time I was able to sweep and steam the floors all while listening to my book. I have also taken advantage of all the driving time that I do, to also get some “reading” in.

Tonight I am going to a friend’s house, she is having a creative gathering, where you can bring whatever you have been creating and work on it there. I will be finishing my cuffs that I am making and hopefully will have a picture of them for you tomorrow.

Dr's Apt

Today we had a Dr.’s Apt. for the babies. It was a follow up with the endocrinologist. For those of you that don’t know, the babies are small. They were diagnosed with failure to thrive when they were 6 months old. Basically what this means for mine is that they were not on the charts in their weights. If you are below the 5th percentile they consider that failure to thrive. Now all my children have been small and on the small side of the charts. Since the babies were not behind in any other way and were hitting all their milestones on time they sent us to the endocrinologist to make sure there wasn’t something going on inside that may be making them not gain weight, but by the time we got in to see the endocrinologist they had started gaining weight, still off the charts but not enough to cause her concern, she just said we need to come back in 3 months that was about 9 months ago, this is our 3rd follow up with her. Today Hosea weighed 22lbs 7 oz and was 31.34 in long and Micah was 21 lbs and 30.94 in long. Hosea is right at the bottom of the chart but is actually on it and Micah is right below the curve but his curve is going up so that is good. She was happy with their progress and said she would like to see them in 6 months this time and if they are still gaining weight and doing fine then we won’t have to see her any more. Luckily we haven’t had to have any blood work done.


Between taking Avrah to school and the Dr.’s apt I took the babies to Reasor’s and for the first time they got to ride in the car cart, they loved it.

Dinner tonight had a 3 out of 5 kids rating. Meaning 3 of them ate it, 2 of them threw it on the floor.

MLK Day.

In honor of MLK day I took the big kids to go see “the book of Eli”…JUST KIDDING I took them to go see “Planet 51”. It was ok; half way through Avrah didn’t want to watch it anymore. There was one scene that sticks out in my head as being funny but probably inappropriate for the age group the movie was targeting. The movie is about an alien planet and a spaceship lands and it is a human. They all freak out because they think he wants to eat their brains and turn them into zombies, he befriends some teenage aliens and they end up saving him from the scientists who want to dissect him. Anyway in the scene where they have just saved him he jumps off the table and is naked, it doesn’t show anything of course but all these teenage aliens are looking at him and one of them says “that’s a strange place to have an antenna.” Now after hearing this I hear one of my boys say to the other, they’re talking about his penis. Real nice. It did turn out to have a good message in the end, don’t they all, about how not to be scared of something you don’t understand or just because it is different from you.

The big boys have been asking for Bibles and I’m not sure how they made it to this age without owning one, so I took the opportunity with just the three of the big ones to go and get them some. We went to Mardel and they got to pick out one each.

We went to my mom’s for dinner (thanks again Mom). After dinner I was trying to get Avrah to help me pick up all the toys, so I told her to put away something and she starts talking about her Bible, so I said “your Bible says to obey your momma” and she said “no, my bible says that I’m in charge” I don’t know what version she got, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t say that. I set her straight, I think, but even though I told her again what it says I think she may still think that it says she is in charge. Hmmm

I’m real glad my kids are at the age where they think I know everything, I’m positive this will change in the near (probably too near) future. However it really makes it difficult to answer all their questions. Here are two questions they asked tonight on the way home that I really didn’t know the answers to.

#1 Does/Can air bounce?

#2 Why is the moon upside down (Judah) sideways (Josiah).

I have a feeling if I answer “I don’t know” too many more times they will catch on that I really don’t know anything. I did just make up an answer for those questions instead of telling them I didn’t know I told them I wasn’t sure but I thought that yes air can bounce, because sound can, although after re-thinking my answer it didn’t make much sense to me, and I told them that the moon was like that because “that’s what time of year it is.” I don’t even know what that means, but it did seem to be an ok answer for them. That must be the real reason I’m back in school, so I can have answers for all my little guys’ questions.

Did NOT get the laundry done.

Did get up early and work out.

Did get one of my cuffs done. (New knitting project I’m working on)

Same ole Sunday?

Went to church

Went to mom's

Went to Reasor’s

Went home

Had friend over

Had dinner

Had fun playing a new game

Had Braum's

Early to bed, didn’t happen tonight

Early to rise will happen in the morning

What's in a name

The Babies have a new trick. They can now climb out of their highchairs. They have been climbing into their highchairs for a while now, but they have to push a chair over to them, also if the chair is left there they could climb back out. Tonight I watched them climb out without any help. I call them babies, but as was pointed out to me they are getting older and aren’t technically babies any more, they are now 19 months old, but in an attempt to not have their identity wrapped up in being twins I try to not refer to them as “the twins” and really never have, but I do call them the babies, which may or may not be worse. The big kids call them baby, doesn’t matter which one they have they don’t have to stop and look and figure out who they are talking about they can just say “the baby”, for example “the baby is hitting me”, “the baby is climbing on the table”, “the baby is throwing things at me”. I guess if I really wanted them to have a sense of individuality I would call them by their names at all times and insist that others do also. But since they probably won’t be reading my blog any time soon, I will still refer to them as the babies, and you all can just know who I’m talking about.


I haven’t seen much of J lately; he has been cleaning and rearranging the garage all week. I’m not complaining, just saying. He must have uncovered his table saw because he said something about making a table. He also said something about making a chest of drawers. And some shelves. He is so handy. I’ll post pics when he gets them done. I’m just hoping to park in the garage again before spring, although I was also hoping to park in it before it got cold too, and that didn’t happen, I won’t hold my breath.

As per a suggestion I got on a previous post about an annoying new "trick"Avrah has picked up. We tried telling her that we would just cut off her legs if they were “too heavy”. Yep that worked she jumped right up and did what she was told. Thanks Antanna. We’ll see how long that lasts. Also we have had less biting incidences from Hosea, although he still does it when he is very frustrated and not getting his way from his brother. But I think what helped is this. I was watching them play and Micah was in his way and he wanted him to move so he opened his mouth to bite him and I jumped up and kind of flipped him on his mouth and told him “no, we do NOT bite.” And it was like it dawned on him that that was what I meant by biting, I think maybe he didn’t know exactly what was making his brother start screaming and what he was getting in trouble for, but now he knows and he hasn’t been doing it as much.

Took my first history quiz today and got a 100% I am so excited!

Hazy Friday

Went to a movie last night with some friends, mistakenly drank some caffeine, and was up till 4. I was in a haze today, so much so that I forgot to take the boys to Jiu Jitsu, way to go mom. I did however make a great dinner, it was crock pot tortellini. 3 of the 5 kids ate it, the babies had garlic bread and cookies for dinner.

"I'm toooooo heavy"- Avrah

You may find what I am about to tell you amusing, but let me tell you it is really annoying.


Whenever I tell Avrah to do something she starts to go do it and then “slips” and falls and starts to whine that she is “too heavy”, and then starts to “try” and stand up only to “slip” again. I have no idea how to get her to stop doing this.

Good news. I did get my hat finished, I am not exactly thrilled with the way it turned out but I did have some cute models try it on for me.

It's a hat for me by the way :)

Also J got the Christmas boxes put away. Thanks Babe.

Of my three goals that I had for this week I accomplished two of them, well actually J accomplished one of them and I did the other. One day this week I got up early and worked out, I’m going to blame not feeling well, not the best excuse I know. Next week the goal will be to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. At least I won’t be working on a silly hat until the wee hours of morning.

For those of you who care and asked me to let them know how it goes. The e-mealz thing is going great. So far we have been doing it for 2 weeks and we have only not done the dinner and got take out instead once. I’d say that is pretty good.

If you are interested here is a link you can follow



If that for some reason doesn’t work or if you are reading this from my blog site you can just click on the ad.

My blog site by the way is http://50stickyfingers.blogspot.com/ for those of you who read this on facebook.

Whoop there it is?

I knew it would start early. I didn’t know it would be this early. Today when I picked Avrah up from school, she met me at the door of her class telling me that Drake was her boyfriend. As we were getting her things out of her cubby one of the other moms informed me that when she got there her son and Drake were wrestling over who got to be Avrah’s boyfriend. I guess Drake won? I’m not sure how they decide these things when they are 3!


I have been listening to the new Gen X radio station, I kind of enjoy the throw back, it reminds me of my teenage years, although I’m not real sure that I am generation X, does anybody know who classifies these things? Yesterday “Whoop there it is” was on and I thought oh no I hope this song doesn’t make a comeback and why do I know all the words? Usually the kids will catch on to a song like that and start singing along, but since I didn’t hear any of them singing I thought I was safe, however when we got out of the car I heard Avrah singing “whoop there it is, whoop there it is” over and over and over.

Today I gave the babies some playdoh to play with in their chairs it was a homemade (not by me) pumpkin or spice kind it smelled good. Josiah brought it home from school a while back. The babies did enjoy playing with it.

I read the first chapter of a book I have to read for my history class, and I am already learning thing I didn’t know like Woodrow Wilson was a racist and set this country back about 30 years in race equality, also found out that Helen Keller was a socialist and that Betsy Ross had nothing to do with the flag (actually already knew that, but had it confirmed).

I am almost finished with my hat, I have all the triangles done and most of them sewn together just have a few more to sew together and then I have to crochet around the edge. Can’t wait to show you.

We had French dip sandwiches for dinner 3 of the kids liked them two of them had seconds 1 only ate cucumbers and one ate chips. Jeremy really liked them too.

Ode to Tuesday

Boring day

Some might say

Dinner, apricot chicken

J said it was kicken

Babies and rooms clean

Books read

Kids in bed

Now to see who can sing.

Ups & Downs

Ups


Got up early and did shred- Jillian really hates you when you take three weeks off!

Got most of my laundry done- still have two baskets to fold, one in the washer and one in the dryer, and three still dirty. Ok this one may be a down.

Cooked dinner off of my menu and did not eat out.

Kitchen is cleaned up after dinner.

All five kids made it to bed alive (after the day I had today, that is saying something in and of itself) by 8.

I finished my first assignment. Don’t be impressed it was just to introduce myself to the class and write something about me and my school goals.

Downs

Didn’t get my laundry done.

Didn’t get the Christmas boxes put away.

Did make a great dinner but the kids did NOT think it was great. They each ate only little parts of it. Dinner was Bean and Ham (turkey ham) soup and coleslaw (with apples and peanuts in it) and cornbread. Dinner went like this. Judah didn’t eat the coleslaw and threw a fit because I wanted him to taste it before deciding he didn’t like it. It did have “dressing” on it after all I should have known better, but he did eat and like the soup so he got some cornbread. Josiah loved the coleslaw (which he kept calling Salisbury steak for some unknown reason), he liked it so much he ate Judah’s, but he did not eat the soup but since he ate the coleslaw he got cornbread. Avrah decided she didn’t want either and mixed them together (yuck) and so she didn’t get any corn bread. Micah dumped both bowl out before I had a chance to even get the other kids’ on the table, that was probably my fault, he did not eat any of either, Hosea set his aside in the little cup holder but also would not eat any of either, although I did get him to taste the soup as he was screaming about it I shoved it in. He didn’t eat any more of it. The babies ate cornbread for dinner. I thought it all was good.

I guess my ups do outweigh my downs although my last down stressed me out a lot, sure is easier when you have help with dinner. Note to self only make foods you are sure they will eat when you have them on your own. The dryer just buzzed so now I have 3 loads to fold. Tomorrow will be better I can tell.

Church, Zio's Reasor's, homes.

We went to Church. Usually we go to my mom’s to eat lunch on Sundays but today W was feeling a bit under the weather and so we decided to go to Zio’s. My brothers and their others met us there. We had a great lunch with minimal spills, well actually there were two, one was my cup that spilled when the waitress set it down on top of a crayon that was under the tablecloth, the other one Hosea spilled but it was really my fault because I didn’t stop him. Anyway lunch was fun.


Then we went to the grocery store. There is a new Reasor’s in Jenks. I don’t know how actually new it is, however it is new to me. I have a Reasor’s about a mile from my house, and I think there are at least 3 between my house and the one in Jenks. I don’t go to Jenks that often and have been doing my grocery shopping at the super target. This week two of my friends told me about the Reasor’s and that I should check it out, and that once I did I wouldn’t want to go anywhere else. So I decided that we would go today for our weekly grocery shopping. It is very nice. The produce section is HUGE! They also have a great deli with a pizza by the slice, and a salad bar. They also have a sushi bar too. The selection was great. The shopping carts were probably one of the best things. They have the double carts, like at Sam’s that also have the ones that have the attached chairs. So this is what we did, the babies sat in the carts double seats and then Josiah and Avrah sat in the chairs and we had Judah push around one of the little carts with all our coats in it. We were there for a looooong time with no real major meltdowns. It was a success; my least favorite part was having to pay $.70 to drive two miles on the turnpike to get there.

This was like the 4th picture I took, that is why Jeremy is looking stressed out. The big boys thought they needed to act out the walking, which made them fuzzy, this is the only one where you could kind of see everyones face.

After grocery shopping we went to look at a house. We really liked a lot of the things about it but there were many things about it that we didn’t like and decided it wasn’t for us. On our way home we stopped at a new housing development across the street and looked at one of their model homes. Where we promptly fell in love with a house that is nowhere near our price range.

We had beef burgundy for dinner with rice and steamed broccoli and rolls. It was a HIT. Jeremy told the kids it was “Chinese food” and they ate it up. There was only a little complaining about the water chestnuts from two of the kids, but the babies ate it up, it was nice to see them actually eat something for a change. This was a crock pot meal and we put it in this morning before we left for church. This one will be returning for sure. Let me know if you want the recipe.

My goals for this week are:

1. Start getting up earlier and working out again.

2. Finish my triangles and start putting the hat together

3. Get all the Christmas boxes put away

Oh and school starts this week too. Wish me luck