A round of turkey-bingo with a 7, 5 and 3
year old went horribly wrong; kids crying, whinny, bored. Everett's
jumping off the living room coffee table. I'm pretty much trying to
salvage our "school" day and say, 'you're going to like this dang
turkey-bingo game if it's the last thing I do' *shaking fist* ...but
then snowflakes started falling across the living room window and we
were all rescued from the torture. The first snow we always have hot
cocoa
to celebrate. Usually I don't make it when it's just a flurry of flakes
that ends in 6 minutes, but today is different. Today we need a
distraction. Badly. Not all the Enchanted Learning printables and
Pinterest homescool pins in the world can save me from today.
It's one of those days where I am being as calm and awesome as can humanly be possible, even giving Mary Poppins a run for her money, and the children are being as whiny, fussy, picky, and uncooperative as possible. Sometimes every single minute is a struggle. Sometimes the results of awesome parenting and patience just doesn't take hold until they are older. ((lol lol)) I tell myself just keep swimming...
It's one of those days where I am being as calm and awesome as can humanly be possible, even giving Mary Poppins a run for her money, and the children are being as whiny, fussy, picky, and uncooperative as possible. Sometimes every single minute is a struggle. Sometimes the results of awesome parenting and patience just doesn't take hold until they are older. ((lol lol)) I tell myself just keep swimming...
At bedtime tonight I told the kids
enthusiastically that we'd try turkey-bingo again tomorrow. They all
said "okay mom!" So tomorrow is another day.
I
really don't have much time to do anything let alone write. It gets me a
little down but I try to write things down here and there. This month was supposed to be more relaxed, more carefree, more balanced, less stressed. It was none of those things. I journaled some things off and on this month...
11/10/13
Layla's doing interviews around the house today. She asks me and Sebastian in a talk show host tone, "Okay now, what schools or colleges have you gone to? ...and Clown College counts, so don't be shy."
Sage and Ethan had their wisdom teeth out and it sucked, but it's over and now we don't ever have to worry about their straight teeth (which they were naturally given!) being ruined from wisdom teeth. We had their wisdom teeth out early in hopes it would be an easier process because the younger you are the smaller they are. Unfortunately for us the difference between 13-14 years old and Charlotte having hers out at 16 years old was not much.
Chicken Surgery
Charlotte and I can now add chicken tongue surgery to our resumes. Poor lil bird. It was time to add some young chickens to the flock again. We usually raise spring chicks but this time we decided to try fall birds. We bought them 6 weeks ago and they just got let loose with the big girl birds last week. When you raise chicks in the spring they don’t start laying eggs until Halloween or Thanksgiving and then soon winter hits and they slow or stop laying for a while. This spring we’ll have healthy perfectly aged birds ready to crank out eggs all spring and summer.
Layla's doing interviews around the house today. She asks me and Sebastian in a talk show host tone, "Okay now, what schools or colleges have you gone to? ...and Clown College counts, so don't be shy."
Sage and Ethan had their wisdom teeth out and it sucked, but it's over and now we don't ever have to worry about their straight teeth (which they were naturally given!) being ruined from wisdom teeth. We had their wisdom teeth out early in hopes it would be an easier process because the younger you are the smaller they are. Unfortunately for us the difference between 13-14 years old and Charlotte having hers out at 16 years old was not much.
Chicken Surgery
Charlotte and I can now add chicken tongue surgery to our resumes. Poor lil bird. It was time to add some young chickens to the flock again. We usually raise spring chicks but this time we decided to try fall birds. We bought them 6 weeks ago and they just got let loose with the big girl birds last week. When you raise chicks in the spring they don’t start laying eggs until Halloween or Thanksgiving and then soon winter hits and they slow or stop laying for a while. This spring we’ll have healthy perfectly aged birds ready to crank out eggs all spring and summer.
They had only been with the big girls 24 hours before
Penelope and Sage caught one and noticed she had a long red string in her
mouth. Charlotte told me she tried to
pull it out but it was stuck. Upon further investigation the thread was tied
around this poor chickens tongue two different ways and knotted three times! It
definitely appeared to be cutting off circulation. We worked on this 2 ft.
string for a half hour. One end was down
the chicken’s throat and one hanging out of her mouth. Charlotte held the bird and I went to work
and it was not easy but we got it done despite almost giving up twice.
The poor hen stayed calm and let us stick tweezers down her throat…my good 10 year old Tweezer-man tweezers! I cannot even think of all the gross things I’ve used these tweezers for. If I even began to name the things you’d barf. I just keep boiling them on the stove as if it’s the only tool in the whole world. You can not underestimate the power of a good pair of tweezers…and I still use them on my eyebrows. Lol.
The poor hen stayed calm and let us stick tweezers down her throat…my good 10 year old Tweezer-man tweezers! I cannot even think of all the gross things I’ve used these tweezers for. If I even began to name the things you’d barf. I just keep boiling them on the stove as if it’s the only tool in the whole world. You can not underestimate the power of a good pair of tweezers…and I still use them on my eyebrows. Lol.
To get the full effect of the surgery story you would have
to hear in the background kids running, crying, fighting, and see Everett keep
stealing our scissors and tweezers when we weren’t looking. Also the sound of “mom, mom, mom, moooom,
mom…” on repeat. It was nuts. The chicken survived!
Friday 11-15-13
Feeling very thankful thoughts today even though my house isn't as clean as I wish it was and I feel really, really behind (and our washing machine is broken and the dirty clothes are starting to pile up). Feeling thankful I have a sweet baby to care for even if the sweeping isn't getting done and the bathroom is messy and past due for a cleaning. I have kids to run to appointments and school events so my bedroom has baskets of unfolded clothes that we were able to wash finally, and important papers. The baby's changing table in my bedroom holds papers, a belly cast, a lap top computer, a toy sword, some other junk and the directions for Layla's 5k run tomorrow. Things are piling up. I keep telling myself to keep living and no stressing.
Every night I think I'll get caught up after the kids go to bed, but I don't. It's mostly because of long talks and laughter on the couch visiting late into night with my husband. Last night we laughed and laughed and laughed together like we were enjoying a date. I like a clean and organized house but I like my husband more. I also noticed recently that we just never have time to watch TV together...and it's because we spend so much time visiting with each other (after the kids are in bed) it gets way too late to watch TV. What a wonderful problem to have.
Saturday 11-16-13
Feeling thankful and
proud that when I woke up this morning I stumbled into the kitchen and
saw 7 year old Penelope loading the dishwasher. I was supposed to do a
monstrous amount of dishes last night but fell asleep with Ricky.
Thankful that I live in a home where we care and take care of it
together even if it's pretty hectic. Feeling very thankful thoughts today even though my house isn't as clean as I wish it was and I feel really, really behind (and our washing machine is broken and the dirty clothes are starting to pile up). Feeling thankful I have a sweet baby to care for even if the sweeping isn't getting done and the bathroom is messy and past due for a cleaning. I have kids to run to appointments and school events so my bedroom has baskets of unfolded clothes that we were able to wash finally, and important papers. The baby's changing table in my bedroom holds papers, a belly cast, a lap top computer, a toy sword, some other junk and the directions for Layla's 5k run tomorrow. Things are piling up. I keep telling myself to keep living and no stressing.
Every night I think I'll get caught up after the kids go to bed, but I don't. It's mostly because of long talks and laughter on the couch visiting late into night with my husband. Last night we laughed and laughed and laughed together like we were enjoying a date. I like a clean and organized house but I like my husband more. I also noticed recently that we just never have time to watch TV together...and it's because we spend so much time visiting with each other (after the kids are in bed) it gets way too late to watch TV. What a wonderful problem to have.
Sunday 11-17-13
A beautiful day outside, but inside there is crying and screaming
over: burnt finger (Penelope and hot glue, hot glue won), laundry piling
up badly from broken washer, glass broken on kitchen floor, Everett
hollering for some one to peel his apple, Sebastian has a birthday party
to go to, the kitchen is a mess with half painted walls and a broken
refrigerator, and some insane woman bought 80 lbs of apples and 50 lbs of local
potatoes...like she thought she had time for that and 8 kids.
I got to retreat to the den to peacefully soothe and nurse a hungry sweet baby for 10 minutes. Back to work now.
So very thankful for a patient husband who spent 4.5
hours doing laundry last night. (And then I spent 2 hours folding
it all.) I don't know how I'd get through the day if he wasn't at the end of every single one smiling at me.
Monday 11-18-13
We really need to order a new water pump for the washer, but the old one is still working --sort of. In order to get it to complete a load of laundry Ricky has to open up the washer valve at the right time and manually drain the washer into our basement floor drain two times a cycle. Then when the pump kicks on he has to make sure it's primed. Sometimes this means pouring water into a hose he has attached to the washer so that the pump primes, this signals our pain in the butt high tech front loader to start the spin cycle.
We have
no way to spin the clothes dry unless the washer is signaled by the
pump. Ridiculous. We've said countless times for countless reasons we
are never buying a washer that doesn't have a specified SPIN selection
on it. Clothes still wet? No spin for you, you're just stuck!!! It's frustrating. Monday 11-18-13
We really need to order a new water pump for the washer, but the old one is still working --sort of. In order to get it to complete a load of laundry Ricky has to open up the washer valve at the right time and manually drain the washer into our basement floor drain two times a cycle. Then when the pump kicks on he has to make sure it's primed. Sometimes this means pouring water into a hose he has attached to the washer so that the pump primes, this signals our pain in the butt high tech front loader to start the spin cycle.
What else was I doing last night? Emptying our refrigerated foods into the freezer downstairs and into an ice chest on the porch. Yup fridge is broken now too. We got the milk out of the ice chest this morning, it's just like camping!
Sunday 11-24-13
We
are still living without a refrigerator and washer. A mild but still
barfy stomach bug invaded our home. My turn was last night. None of the
little kids have gotten in yet, which means the barfed on laundry and
towels hasn't hit yet. Life is slightly frustrating a real challenge sometimes!
Two weeks ago I told Ricky I wanted a white
vintage Christmas tree. Spoiled and grateful, I am sitting near it right
now as I type. We found it on Ebay. He said he loves it too and it was a great idea!
Monday Nov 26, 2013
The crock pot leaks and I just noticed a crack. I was complaining about it and Ricky said I complained more about a broken $40 crock pot than I have about the refrigerator. Ha. Funny and interesting.
I have been thinking all week about how refreshing it is we don't have to do anything for Thanksgiving. I'm not even making pie. Charlotte just told me, "I'm so glad we don't have to cook anything this year!" And while we love having Thanksgiving at our house we are so glad we aren't hosting it this year.
Then we started discussing pie...and how we have a pumpkin on the porch and we should make fresh pumpkin pie ...and how we should make a Thanksgiving centerpiece too.
Well so much for doing nothing! Charlotte's cutting up that pumpkin right now. Something is so wrong with us!!
I have been thinking all week about how refreshing it is we don't have to do anything for Thanksgiving. I'm not even making pie. Charlotte just told me, "I'm so glad we don't have to cook anything this year!" And while we love having Thanksgiving at our house we are so glad we aren't hosting it this year.
Then we started discussing pie...and how we have a pumpkin on the porch and we should make fresh pumpkin pie ...and how we should make a Thanksgiving centerpiece too.
Well so much for doing nothing! Charlotte's cutting up that pumpkin right now. Something is so wrong with us!!
