Deserted

Tonight while trick or treating Cinderella noticed the next house was dark.   She said to me, "not this house, it looks deserted,  and by deserted I don't mean with a cake on top."  Silly girl.

I Don't Care

OK, so maybe I really do, and that is the problem.  But I am trying not to care.   Care what other people think that is.

I was trying to do the declutter in 91 day challenge, but then I discovered something today.   I have a life beyond decluttering my home.  I have laundry that needs to be done, I have kids  that need me to play with them.  I have children that need me to drop everything at different times during the day and come to their aid.  And I do those things because I am a MOM.   I love my kids.  I will do things for my kids.  But no I am not getting my cupboards all the way decluttered today.   Maybe by the end of the week they will be, but I am making no promises.

I know that my house is a mess.  I understand it isn't as clean as I want it, or what many people may think it should be.  But I WILL play with my kids.  I WILL come to their rescue, and I WILL teach them to clean along side of me.  If you have a problem with the state of my house, feel free to come and clean it.  However if you don't want to clean my house, don't judge me for not cleaning it either.

Throw a fit dance

I don't know about at your house, but at my house, when children get upset and throw a fit, it looks pretty much the same.   This morning as Spike was throwing a fit, I made up a song.  The tune may be from another song, because that often happens when I make up songs, but the words are pure Julie.   It might not work with my older kids, and it might not work next time, but at least this morning it defused the situation.  In the video they are hamming up quite a bit, and not really acting the way they do when they are really throwing a fit, but I think you will get the idea.

The Pantry

Today I de-cluttered the pantry.  This one overwhelmed me even thinking about it, so the hubs started helping me this morning.  He didn't know I wanted to get a before picture, so my before picture is actually kind of a in the middle picture.  However thanks to his wonderful help I finished.

Here you go:

Before:

After:

De-cluttering the fridge

I had a friend refer to me to a blog post yesterday talking about de-cluttering your house in 91 days.    She told me she was going to try this, and I decided that since I have been trying to de-clutter that having a plan, might be helpful, so I would join her.

The first week the goal is to de-clutter the kitchen/dining room/ pantry.  On Monday it is the Fridge and Freezer, so that is what I worked on today.

Here are my before and after pictures.  Note:  I was not cleaning, I was just getting rid of the junk, and expired stuff.

Before:

 After:

The Fridge side looks better than the freezer side, because there is only so much you can do with plastic bags of veggies, which is what is most of what is in there.  However if you look at it in person, it is much easier to find what you are looking for.  

Actly

Spike has picked up a new word lately.  His word is actually, only he says it something like, "actly".   Today he was playing a coloring game on my mom's Kindle.  He was coloring a picture of a jack-o-lantern, and he had colored the whole picture green. He turned to me, and said, “It's a keepy pukin, it's geen, but atcly it's orange.”

Sleeping arrangements

What kind of sleeping arrangements do you have for your children on a regular basis?  Our girls share a room, and currently they share a bed.  Tuis is an issue of discontent as far as Aurora is concerned.   She wants her own bed.
Do any of your children share beds?  If they do how do you handle this kind of issue?

Cavities and root canals

Today I had to take Guy to the dentist to get a cavity filled.  Turns out his cavity was so big that the dentist had to do what he described as a baby root canal.  He also had a small cavity in the next tooth over that they also filled.   I wish I could get that kid to do a better job brushing his teeth.

More clothes

I spent today doing laundry,  and going through yet more clothes. Hopefully by the end of this week I will have them all sorted out.

Bike Riding

Today the hubs gave me a couple of opportunities to ride my bike.  I think I rode it about 4 miles overall.  Not bad.

Frustrating

Tonight our elementary school had their fall festival.  I have to give a shout out to the parents on the PTA who did an awesome job putting it together.  I am sure that was a lot of work.  Personally I am not on the PTA, (I have enough other things on my plate right now)  so I can't complain about how they do things.  They do the best they can.

On that note however, I found myself feeling quite frustrated tonight.  Not frustrated at individuals, but frustrated at how things played out, and things that were really outside of my control.   Cinderella is in her schools chorus.  They were told to be on the stage by 6 tonight.  So we got her there, and then stuck around in the gym/lunchroom/auditorium waiting for her to perform.  We had no idea when that would be, and so we felt like we couldn't participate in any of the activities outside of this room, for fear of missing our daughter perform.    For some reason, unknown to me, they didn't perform until about 6:40.  So we were stuck in the gym for 40 min, with 5 kids who wanted to do other things.

Once we finished there, we went and stood in line for the hay ride.  This took another 20 min, which is understandable.   However, there were some kids who cut in line right in front of us.  I wanted to tell them to scram, but one of the kids bore some resemblance to the man who was in line in front of us, so I wasn't sure if they were with him or not.  I am guessing not.  The guy didn't acknowledge them at all.

After this we went to look at the pumpkins my kids decorated, and then we headed to the media center, where there were gift baskets set up for a silent auction.  I wanted to bid on something, and help support the school, especially seeing as how I never got around to donating anything for any baskets in my kids classes.  Well we got there with 30 min to look through baskets.  It was crowded, and I was trying to look at baskets without losing my kids in the crowd.  I found a few that caught my attention, but I couldn't find the hubs, and I wanted his opinion before I placed a bid.  By the time I found him, and we started looking at baskets together the auction was almost closed.  We got only half way around the baskets, and they announced it was closing.  So I just hurried and wrote my name on the list of the one in front of me, which had caught my attention, but wasn't my first pick, because I felt I had no other choice.

Then I had to stick around for them to figure out who was the winner on all of the baskets.  By this point in time, the hubs tells me he can't find Guy and Spike, so he goes off to look for them.  Then he comes back to tell me that they are gone.  That is never something you want to hear at a crowded public place.   I feel like I can't leave, because I need to pay for my basket, so I sent Cinderella off with her dad to find her brothers, and stayed there with Scooter, and Aurora.  Just after they leave, I hear the principle announce over the PA system that he has my boys in his office.  I felt like everyone looked at me and laughed.  Kind of a knowing laugh, but a laugh all the same.  I felt embarrassed, that all these people now knew that I am not able to keep track of my kids.  But at least they were found.  I am very grateful for that.

Little Clean Upper

Last week we bought a used bike trailer, that converts to a jogging stroller.  So this morning I set it up as a stroller, and put the boys in, then Aurora helped me push, as we took her to school.  Then I took a little walk/jog/run around the neighborhood.  When I got home, Spike wanted to play Little People.  Those toys are ones that I keep locked up (the kids each have one type of toy that they enjoy out, and the others are locked away.  I will get them out for them if they ask, and the other toys are picked up.  Otherwise our house becomes a disaster of toys.)  I told him we needed to pick up first, so he helped me pick up the toys that were out.  We got the Little People toys out, and played for a little while.  Then he wanted to play something else, so I told him we needed to pick up the Little People.  He put them all back in the box, and I put them in the cupboard.  

Then he played cars.  Scooter was getting involved in ways Spike didn't like, so I moved Scooter over to the other side of the room, with some other toys, while I folded laundry and interacted with Spike.  He played cars for a bit, and then wanted to do something else, so without me even asking, he picked up all the cars before getting out the next item.  He did a really good job doing this.  

I just wish I could get all of my kids to clean up like this when they are playing together.  

Clothes, clothes, and more clothes

When I have a child change sizes of clothing I box up the old size to be used when another child reaches that size.  This saves a lot of money, but also takes a lot of time and effort.  As well as space.  The problem is, as my children grow, the pile of clothes grows too.  Sometimes  they will outgrow a shirt before the pants, and so the outfit gets separated.  Then when the next child reaches that size, I don't always find all of the clothes I put away, and so sometimes  I end up having to buy more.  Or I have a child who is shaped different than a previous one, so the clothes don't don't fit right, and so I buy more clothes.   Today I spent a large portion of the day sorting clothes so thatI can make room for the summer clothes the kids just wore.  Can I tell you how exhausting that is.

Pumpkin Patch

Today was the preschool pumpkin patch field trip.  The kids really enjoy this one.  I got a few pictures of the kids.  In the top picture the kid in the green hood is Spike, and the girl rubbing her eye is Aurora.  In the bottom one, the witch is Aurora and the green hood is Spike again.  I am not sure if he was in the cat at that point, or standing in front.   Aurora wanted to get in each and every hole, and have me take her picture.  So I don't remember if they were both behind the frame, or just one of them.

I not two!

So Spike is 2. And that being the case, quite often when there is a debacle between him and another sibling, when the other sibling gets talked to about it, they will often say, "But Spike did....."  To which we respond, "But Spike is only 2."

Well last night after such an occurrence, Spike was being taken from the room, and said, "I not two, I not two!"  "How old are you?" he was asked.  "His response, "one!"   Then tonight a similar thing happened.  Only this time when being asked how old he is, his reply was, "twee."

I wonder sometimes if he understands more than we give him credit for.

Smoothie Picnic

Yesterday we were out running errands at lunch time so we decided to stop and get a light lunch at Jamba Juice.  The weather was nice, so we sat on the grass strip in front of the restaurant and enjoyed our smoothies and pretzels.  The kids even found an area that kind of dipped down like it should be fore water drainage, and had fun playing in it.  I am glad we were able to have some fun while the weather was cooperating.

Presidents

When I was younger my mother used educational place mats.  When I bought a nice tablecloth a few months back, I followed her example and bought some for us to use, and hopefully keep the tablecloth looking nicer longer.
One of these place mats shows American Presidents.

Cinderella has enjoyed learning the different names of the presidents, and will often ask questions, or quiz us on them.  IE.  Who was the 25th President?

Well this morning she had been looking at the place mat and came to me saying, "Did you know there were two presidents with the name Harrison?   I am really familure with Benjamin Harrison, because one of my favorate movies is "The One And Only, Genuine, Original Family Band"  which takes place during the election between Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison.   I found myself trying to think of what the other Harrison's name was.  I thought  William, no  I know wasn't Ford's first name Harrison.  Harrison Ford, that sounds right.   So I told Cinderella that.  She went and looked.  No it is William H. Harrison.   So then I told her that Ford's first name was Harrison too.  She went and looked and came back.  By this time I remembered that the president Ford, was Gerald Ford, to which she informed me was correct.  So then I was thinking, who is Harrison Ford.  Then I remembered.

Silly me.  How well do you know the presidents?


On the note of presidents I thought I would share another funny antic dote that happened lately.  The other night we took the kids out for Pizza.  At the restaurant there was a television showing basketball.  Cinderella looked at it and asked, "Is that Obama?"   I told her no, Obama doesn't play basketball.  She then asked me what he plays.  I told her politics.  She then asked, "What is politics?  Is that lying?  Politics and Advertisements are kind of the same.  They are both just different words for lying."   Oh the mind of an 8 year old.

Little Tornadoes

Today I had all 5 kids home.  The school has their fall break today though Monday.  It was crazy.   The hubs decided that since I have been running on little sleep lately, and we didn't have to get the kids to school at a certain time, I could sleep in.   He also slept in.  When we woke up we found that Spike and Guy had redecorated my kitchen floor with dry erase markers.  They also marked the chairs, with everyone's name, so you can know which chair is yours.  Spike also colored all over the white board with permanent marker and crayons.  

I don't know why, exactly, but my boys in particular, are little kegs of dynamite.  Those boys are crazy at times.  They have so much energy, they go around my house like tornadoes.  When the weather is good, I try to send them outside so they can get rid of their energy in constructive ways.  However on rainy day's like today, they spent most of their time indoors.  I would try to get them to work, and use their energy in those kinds of ways, but that was like trying to herd cats.  :/

At one point I shut both boys in their room, but then they were just destroying their room.  So then I took Spike out, and told Guy he needed to get dressed and clean his room.  He did get dressed and his room did get cleaner, but I think the mess was just too overwhelming for him.  By lunch time, he still had stuff all over the floor.  I finally told him he had made a good try, and he could come out, if he could behave well for the rest of the day.  But if he started being wild again, he would have to come back in his room and finish cleaning it.  He was pretty good the rest of the day.

Wow!  That was only day 1.  I still have 2 more days, plus the weekend.  I need to figure out what to do with my kids if the weather stays yucky.

Laundry

I have done a terrible job keeping on top of my laundry lately.  Wednesday is my laundry day, and I usually don't get all of my laundry finished that day.  Well this morning I did't really have anything pressing on my schedule (that I knew about.  I spaced a dentist appointment.)  I was going to get my laundry done.  I worked hard all morning helping the kids do their jobs, cleaning up as I went.  I was feeling really productive.

Then my day ground to a screeching halt, when I went to rotate the wash and found this:

That is the inside of my dryer.  It doesn't normally look like that.  The black marks are melted crayon.  Yep! Missed a crayon when I was sorting the wash (or maybe Spike threw it in with the clothes when he helped me put them in the dryer.  Don't know, and it doesn't really matter).
Well, I was afraid if I put the clean clothes from my washer into that dryer, I would end up with wax on them too.  So I did some research. Run your dryer for 15 min, then clean off the softened wax.  There were many options I came across:  Some said "magic eraser."  Some said "WD-40.  On a cloth- don't spray it in the dryer, because it is flammable."  Well that one scared me.  I wasn't going to rub something that flammable around in my dryer.  I also read that you can take a powder cleaner like comet or ajax, and using a toothbrush scrub the wax off.     I opted to try the magic eraser, because I had one on hand.  It worked some, but there was still a lot of wax that didn't want to come off.

I was also concerned as to if there was anyway to salvage the clothes.  I took a look at the batch, and there wasn't a single item in there that didn't have crayon marks on it.  So more research and I found that if you soak your clothes in laundry detergent, borax, and Oxy-clean, it should take most of the crayon stains out.

I didn't have any borax or Oxy-clean on hand, so I went to the store, bought those and some ajax to clean the dryer.  When I got home I decided to get the clothes soaking

 Well I have a front loading washer, so I couldn't soak the clothes there.  So I filled up a bathtub with really hot water, 1 cap full of detergent, 1 cup borax, and 4 scoops Oxy-clean.  Soaked the clothes in there for 1 hour.

While the clothes were soaking I turned my attention back to the dryer.  At this point my older kids got home from school.  Cinderella was intrigued by what I was doing and asked if she could scrub the dryer.   So I let her.  I thought I might have to go behind her and get what she missed, but her help would be greatly appreciated.  

Once she was done, I just needed to clean all the ajax out of the dryer, and send it on a test run.  I put a few cleaning rags in there to see if I got any crayon on them.  Nope!  Came out all clean.  I was then able to rotate my clothes from the washer into the dryer.
Here is a picture of the inside of the dryer after it was all clean.

Doesn't that look a lot better?

I took the clothes from the tub, put them in the washer, and ran them through the Heavy Duty Cycle, without adding anymore detergent.  Probably 2/3 of the clothes came out clean after that.  The last 1/3 I put back in the washer, with a little Oxy-clean, more detergent and ran it Heavy Duty again.  I haven't checked it yet to see how it turned out.

So no I didn't get my laundry all done today.  But I was reminded that you need to learn to flow with what happens in life.  Even if it is a crayon in the dryer.

The Mom Medic Course

I think it could be really helpful if there was a course that you could take as a mom (or dad), that teaches basic medical skills.  CPR (I know you can take classes on this subject), How to remove slivers, how to tell if your child has an ear infection, what a healthy throat looks like verses a sick one, ect.  I think this could be very helpful, and reduce the number of unnecessary doctors visits. 

Scooter hasn't been feeling the best lately, and today he was extra fussy and pulling on his ears.  So I called up the Dr's office and took him in.  Nope, he is fine.

Flu shots

Today I took the kids to get flu shots.   They all cried. However, I would rather have them cry than get sick.

Conference weekend

Seems when ever I get out of my regular routine,  I don't do a very good job keeping up with blog posts.   This weekend we apent some time with the family at my parents house.  Enjoyed the LDS General Conference.   I love having the opportunity to listen to a Prophet of God speak. 

Worthless

There was a book fair at the kids school this week.  Today Guy was talking about it and told us that "there was a book there that says how to defeat zombies.   But since zombies aren't real that book is worthless."

The spinny wheel of death

My computer has decided it doesn't like the wi-fi right now.  It is really frustrating, any time I try to use it I get the spinny wheel of death,  that just goes for a long time, and gets no where. The weird thing is, all of our other wireless devices work fine.
Maybe tomorrow it will work.

Dino Facts- In His Brain

Yesterday we were taking the kids to a dinosaur museum.  On the way there, Guy was reading "Detective Dinosaur."  The book has 3 different mysteries that Detective Dinosaur solves.  The first one is the case of the missing hat, where Detective Dinosaur is looking for his hat.  The first place he looks is in his trash can, where all he sees is a banana peel.  At this point Guy stops reading and says, "Why is there a banana peel in his trash can.  He is a T-Rex, and they are carnivores, and a banana is a plant!'

At this point Cinderella pipes in,  "He's got Dino Facts.....  In his brain!"  It was a lot more funny to hear, than to read.


Another funny, not at all related to dinosaurs.  The other day I was in the bathroom with Spike.  He was looking at the floor, and said, "That a bunny!"  "What's a bunny?"  I asked.  "That!"  He said pointing, "That a bunny!" He then got down closer to what he was pointing to, and said, "Oh, that a bug.  That a bug bunny!"  (By the way my kids don't know Loony Toons.)   'What's up doc?"