7 Quick Takes - Make Overs

1.  I got a new haircut and color!

Because it's so different I've been feeling a bit like I went into the witness protection program.  Even close friends do not recognize me until I start talking to them.  My kids were a bit shell shocked over the make-over, but now they are used to it.  I love the shorter cut and bangs, it's so much easier to take care of in the summer, especially with all the swimming.  I've never had my hair so black before (channeling my inner Hallie...or maybe Katie Perry)?  Either way, I'm enjoying the new look.

2.  Princess decided to get a new do this week too:

New, shoulder length haircut!

She loves going to Aunt Lesley's to get her hair cut.  Her favorite part is when her Aunt sprays "sparkles" on her hair when she's done.  She has been asking to get her hair cut shorter for awhile now, but I've been trying to convince her that having long hair is fun.  Truth be told, Princess hates me to fix, style, braid, (whatever) her hair.  When she was 2, we had to have her hair cut in a really short bob thanks to Game Boy taking the scissors to it.  I was upset because her hair was just starting to get long enough and thick enough to fix at the time.  However, the bob was really cute on her and Doug loved it because he was washing her hair all salon style in the bathroom sink (the girl has no idea how blessed she is to have him as her Daddy).

3.  The older boys have been gone this past week to church camp, they come home today.  Having two less kids around makes the house seem a bit quieter, we're looking forward to them coming home.  This year we didn't get to do drop off or pick up at the camp.  The church decided to take a bus because there were so many kids from our church attending.  The camp is a little over an hour's drive north of us.  It was more convenient to not make the drive, but as a mom I admit to missing making sure they were settled in at drop off (and making sure they didn't leave anything behind at pick-up).  Firstborn was gone less than 24 hours when this occurred:

Shattered Gerbil Habitat!

Toddler Boy decided to pull the gerbil aquarium off the stand, which then shattered.  Followed by pandemonium as we rushed to put the dogs outside before they decided to eat one of Firstborn's beloved pets.  Then we had to catch the two gerbils, who were running/hopping around the living room.  (Disclaimer:  neither Toddler Boy or the gerbils were harmed in this incident).  Of course, this happened after the pet store down the street closed so Doug had to make a late night Wal-Mart run to purchase a new 10 gallon aquarium.  The whole thing made for an exciting Sunday night!

4.  Princess got to spend the night at Grandma's house with her cousin this past week.  They had a "girl's night" sleepover, complete with nail polish and everything.  My mom raised only daughters and she is such a good "girl mom", she knows how to pamper them!  I'm afraid Princess and I will never instill an appreciation of the more feminine things of life in my boy saturated household.  My apologies to my future daughters-in-law...

5.  I've been spending time pulling our curriculum together for the upcoming homeschool year.  Princess will "officially" join us as a kindergartner, and we'll also be doing grades 8/6/3.  I only list grades as a reference point, because homeschooling is so flexible there is a "range" of classroom work.  Since my oldest will be in high school (yikes!) next year I've been working towards my middle schoolers becoming more independent in their studies.  As for myself, I'm working on transcripts and becoming more organized and intentional on what homework I keep for their records.  As always, surrounding it all in prayers!

6.  Game Boy and I went to visit my Aunt Chris while Princess was at Grandma's.  She's a teacher, and over the summer she taught a kindergarten class and they used tablets.  Thanks to switching cable companies, we're receiving an additional Kindle Fire for our household.  I'm planning to incorporate some educational apps and wanted to see what worked for her kids.  If any of you have any advise of educational apps your kids love, please comment away!

Of course, no trip to Aunt Chris' would be complete without a visit to Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, yum!!  Aunt Chris and Uncle Ron introduced me to Ted Drewes when I spent a weekend with them one summer when I was a teenager.  That, and Fortel's Pizza Den.  This may be dating me, but I also recall her showing me something calling a "compact disc", (at the time that cassette tapes were popular).  They were too expensive then, but she swore that this was the direction music technology was heading.  She predicted that eventually the price would come down enough and nobody would even use cassette tapes anymore...prophetic, anyone?

7.  Hats off to all of you bloggers who took up Jen's 7 days of blogging challenge.  You have been keeping me busy reading, love it!  I did not take up the challenge, I know full well that I do not have the ability/time to blog daily (I like reading other blogs too much)!  However, I knew when I started this blog that I didn't have alot of time to devote to it, and I'm ok with that.  For now, I am just trying to capture some memories for my family and keep up with the laundry too.  Blogging is only something I do in my spare time, which I never seem to have enough.  I have to live my "real, off-line life" intentionally first, before I commit any additional time to my poor, neglected blog.  Maybe someday blogging will become less of a hobby and I'll be able to incorporate it more into my life, like many of my favorite bloggers have done.  Baby steps...

Have an awesome weekend and click over to Conversion Diary to see more Quick Takes!!

Five Favorites - Organization

Reading Jen's post on organization has inspired me to do a 5 favorites on what I have found that works for our house (read:  I'm not organized enough to do a whole post on it, but I should be able to pick out a few of my favorite tricks).


1.  Sock Basket

Yes, this is an actual picture of ours

We've tried buying socks in different colors for each child, but it just didn't go over well.  This system works well for us simply because we only have two girls in the family (me and Princess).  Almost all of our socks are white, with the exception of Doug's work socks and our soccer socks.  All clean socks get thrown in the sock basket, done.  If I want to wear a pair of mine that are colored they're pretty easy to find because they'll stand out against the white.  Colored socks make me happy, even if I'm the only one who sees them.  Besides, the newest fashion is to wear mixed matched socks anyway...who knew we were ahead of the curve on this one!

2.   My Homeschool Cabinet

Cut me some slack, the school
year hasn't started yet!

This was a gift from my husband's beloved grandmother's estate, and I love, love, love it.  It makes me happy to be using it for all our school books because Grandma Haege was an educator and I think it makes her smile in heaven to know we are putting it to such good use.  Plus, it's big enough to hold pretty much all our stuff.  At least all the homeschool stuff is in one place, when it starts to overflow I know it's time to declutter the artwork and such.

3.  DVD Binder

Why I need one of these...

OK, this one I haven't done yet, but it is a super idea that a friend of mine uses and I think it's genius and I'm planning on implementing it as soon as I have a spare minute (maybe I'll let the older boys work on it instead).  She has a ton of Disney movies and to keep them organized she takes them out of their original cases and sticks them in a binder labeled "Kids Movies" (with the plastic pages that hold multiple CD's per page).  Then she puts the DVD cases in a box in her attic.  Like I said, genius.  The cases stay nice and all of her movies are in one place so when they go on a car trip she just takes the whole binder so the kids aren't fighting over which movie to take.  I would expand on the theme by putting their XBox games in there too.  The only issue I would see with this is making sure you don't leave the binder in a hot car or accidentally leave it in a hotel room on vacation.  It would be tragic to lose your entire movie/game collection at once!

I still think this is a good idea, our DVDs are constantly getting scratched up because the kids are popping them in and out, and then the cases go missing/break/have cover missing from them (you get the picture).  As you can see above, our DVDs are currently stored on a high shelf to keep the little ones from reaching them.  It would be nice to have all of that combined to one or two folders and clean the clutter up.

4.  My Changing Table

We've received this from Doug's folks when Firstborn was born, my MIL said they used it as a changing table when their boys were little, so it's had alot of use.  We've painted it multiple times to match the decor of the nursery.  I keep the diapers and wet wipes in the top drawer, along with Toddler Boy's pajamas.  Then the rest of his clothes go in the bottom two drawers.  We've gathered quite a collection of those thin receiving/swaddling blankets over the years and I use them as the cover to the changing pad on top.  If it gets dirty I just whip it off and throw it in the wash and grab a new one out of the drawers.  It's not in the shot, but I also have a "diaper champ" diaper pail off to the side.  It's wonderful for keeping the smell down in the nursery, I usually only have to empty it on trash day.  We've used cloth diapers on and off over the years, but when we're using disposables this is what works for us.

5.  Shoes in the Van

I'll end with the comment I left over at Jen's organization post and mention the "shoes in the van" trick, which is similar to the "outfit and diapers" in the van trick I used when the kids were really small or working on potty training.  This summer we started leaving Princess' (5) and Toddler Boy's (2) shoes in the van.  It has been a life saver on my sanity and anxiety levels.  Seriously, we would start looking for their shoes 1/2 hour before we were supposed to leave, we'd put them on...only for them to lose them again right before we walked out the door!!  Even if Princess left her shoes by the door, Toddler Boy finds great joy in wearing her shoes around and dropping them wherever so it makes it impossible to find both of them.  It helps to have shoes they can put on and off themselves (or with their brother's help) rather quickly because chances are they will wait until we arrive at our destination before slipping them on.

The down side of this is they are always, always running around barefoot.  Which means I am constantly cleaning their feet off.  It could also entail a trip to the E.R. if they step on something (like, say a large fish hook with a barb that was knocked down by the dog).  The fact is, my two youngest despise shoes and would be running around barefoot whether their shoes were in the car or not.  At least when they're in the car the shoes are not lost.

Stickers from recent E.R. visit
Princess was so, so brave

(Trust me, you absolutely do not want to see a picture of the fish hook embedded in her foot).  It was not pretty, but I sure am proud of how well Princess did in the hospital.  She scored stickers and a McDonald's Happy Meal from the whole ordeal.

Head over to Hallie at Moxie Wife to see more 5 Favorites link ups!!

Park Days

As everyone else in the Midwest United States, we are totally taking advantage of the fall-like temperatures at the end of July and heading to the park...

Loves smiling for the phone/camera!

Hanging out with Jesus

The kids love going to the "Jesus Park" (which is part of a local Catholic Shrine).  They added a water feature a few years back, which is great on hot summer days.  Not so great for today, I spent some of our park visit warning the kids to "stay away from the water"!

"Sliding" photo, static hair and all!

Totally not centered, but not bad considering I took it with my ancient camera phone, which is known for it's blurry action shots.  One of his favorite activities, he probably went up and down it a dozen times.

Fall, 2011

Today

Other favorite activity, the swing.  What a difference two years makes!  The two older boys are at church camp this week, so I just have the "littles" at home (ages 2/5/8).  Doug and I always find the change in the family dynamic fascinating.  Life moves at just a bit slower pace when we only have the younger ones to parent.  I find myself going to the park more often, feeding the ducks, making sure to be home for nap times, etc.  In other words, things I used to do when I just had little ones (3 under 5).  I enjoy the change up, even if it can be a bit more exhausting because I don't have the older ones to help out and entertain the young ones (say, when I'm cooking dinner or taking a shower).  Although, at 8, Game Boy is a help.  He tends to step up to the challenge when his older siblings are gone.  He takes over the helper and protector role and usually becomes more responsible (if only for the week).

Thankful today for the beautiful weather and the time to cherish my three younger children, praying that my older boys are enjoying church camp, and looking forward to seeing extended family this weekend!

First Five Favorites

This is the first time I'm linking up with Hallie for my Five Favorites this week...

1.  My new swimsuit!  I picked it up at Macy's this week.  I spend alot of time at the pool, we are there pretty much everyday.  I've been wearing my old one but next week we'll be going to a waterpark with our church.  My old suit is fine for swimming or sitting out poolside watching the kids.  However, walking around a waterpark is another matter entirely!

I did some on-line shopping and saw this tankini on their website so I decided to hit the local store and see if I could find it there.  I didn't see any on display but as I was searching the racks I came across a top (which just happened to be in my size).  So I snagged it and as I was browsing another rack I found some bottoms stuck in-between some other stuff (also in my size).  I tried on some other suits just to be sure but this was definitely "the one".  The best part...when I went to check-out the sales clerk mentioned she had never seen this one before in this color.  She said it must have been an internet return.  To top it off, it was on sale and with my 20% off coupon I snagged this $208 swimsuit for $66!  What are the odds?  Jesus had my angels working overtime, I am sure.  I hate swimsuit shopping as much as every other female I know but this trip was the best.one.eva!

"Sinful Colors"

2.  My daugher's nailpolish.  She got them as a birthday gift from her cousin and I've spent lots of time painting her fingers and toes.  Today I took some time to do mine and I love them.  I'm so, so happy God decided to add a girl to our group of boys.  All the testosterone in our home sometimes makes me forget what being a girl is all about.  Princess is more girly than tomboy at this point, and that's good for the whole family.  She generously lets me borrow any color I want except her pink sparkle one (which is fine by me because I don't look all that good in pink anyway).

3.   Reconciliation.  Maybe this one is too serious to be on the list, but right now I'm really thankful for it.  My church's priest is out of town for the next two weeks, I went to confession right before he left but wouldn't you know it...  So Saturday I went hunting for another church for reconciliation.  I went by one who had times listed before their 4:00 Mass but when I got there the place was deserted!  Which was ok, I spent some time praying in the empty church, but I still needed reconciliation.  Lucky for me I live near a shrine that offers it twice daily.  I just didn't appreciate the power and graces behind that sacrament until I became Catholic!  It makes me sad that so few people take advantage of it that the area churches don't have regular set times, usually you have to make an appointment.

4.  My kindle fire.  I love old fashioned books too, but the convenience of an e-reader just can't be beat.  I use mine for reading 99% of the time.  I especially like downloading the daily readings from Mobile Gabriel for my morning devotion time.  I just download it at the beginning of the month and I have all of the readings for that month with a little devotional write up at the end of each one.  Anything to make my frazzled brain a bit more focused and organized, I love starting my day with prayers while the house is still quite in the early morning (why, yes, I am a morning person...why do you ask)?  As an aside, the mornings are pretty much the only time the house is "quiet", even the dogs like sleeping in.

Hanging with my honey in our tent

5.  Last but not least on my list...long weekends with my sweetheart!  Doug was off work July 4th and he took off Friday too, making it a four day weekend.  He works alot of hours so it's nice to have him around for long stretches of time.  We didn't work on any major projects this weekend, just relaxing, hanging out at the pool and playing with the kids.  I've just been on "maintenance mode" with the house over the extended weekend and it's starting to show the strain.  Maybe I'll try to put in an hour Sunday evening so I don't wake up to a disaster Monday morning.

That's my 5...go check out more with Hallie at Moxie Wife.

7 QT - July 4th Style

We headed  out to the country for a little farm fun to celebrate Independence Day...

1.  Toddler Boy rockin his flag shirt (which already has a hole in it)!  It didn't have that when I put it on him this morning, I swear.  No matter how many times I put them up he always manages to find the kid scissors that his sister uses for her art projects.  (Or, more likely, she gets them down for a project and then doesn't put them back up).  Then he turns them around and snips little holes in his t-shirts.  He is really going thru his older brother's hand me downs, considering he's our fourth boy, that's saying something.  If he's not careful I'm going to start putting him in his sister's hand me downs!  It would be an impressive punishment if he was a bit older but at this age he actually likes putting on Princess' stuff just to annoy her.

 2.  No trip to the farm is complete without a horse ride.  I think Toddler Boy enjoyed this one as much as this one...

Toddler Boy riding Murphy

3.  I'm a terrible horse picture taker.  Murphy walked right up to us and Princess and Toddler Boy were in heaven.  I was just busy freaking out and making sure they didn't get stepped on.  Horses are ALOT bigger when you're standing next to one in a field with three kids and no fences separating you and them.  At one point in the day the older boys left the gate unlatched and Mr. Murphy came walking up the path to the house.  Luckily he was pretty easy going and Doug's mom got him back in the fence.

4.  Here's a better horse picture of Princess riding Joey (at least his head is in the shot).  In my defense, I am taking the picture while holding a squirming Toddler Boy and dodging Murphy, who was trying to eat the grass at my feet.

5.  Doug's parents' farm doesn't just have horses, there are cats and dogs aplenty too!  The younger kids kept the cats busy.

Of course there was fishing!!

Enjoying strawberry shortcake

6.  Then we returned home for the fireworks show in our front yard, thanks to the boys...

Fun with sparklers

Nice lightshow!

7.  Happy to announce that no one was harmed lighting any of the fireworks.  I and the littles had our seats on the porch and watched them do all the fireworks in the street.  Toddler Boy was a bit freaked out by the loud noises and kept ducking for cover behind my lawn chair but by the end he was a bit less jumpy.  Hope everyone had a fun filled Independence Day!!

Go check out more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary...

7 Quick Takes

1.  I finally took the plunge and started running again!  (Or, more like, slow jogging / walking in my case).  It's only been a couple weeks but I'm making much more progress this time than when I ran a couple years ago.  I'm attributing that to my change in running form.  I switched over to the "barefoot running" style.  The first day I used it I found I could run a longer distance than I did two years ago after running two months!  Impressive.  I'm hoping to enter my church's 5K in August.  Of course, by posting that it makes me more accountable to actually, you know, enter.  The deadline for early registration is August 1st, so that gives me plenty of procrastination time.  I'm sure I won't actually sign up until that date.

2.  All of this exercise has actually given me quite a bit of extra energy.  I am sad to say that I have not taken full advantage of it and totally cleaned my house.  The house is still hovering in this somewhat wrecked state and it is hard to know where to begin.  When I was working full time and considering becoming a stay at home mom, I had all these pictures in my head of how my house would look when I would be home all day to clean and/or organize it.  Somehow I forgot to factor in that when you're home all day with the kids you are actually living there all day, which means you are there all day to mess it up too!  I also forgot to factor in more children, which has the effect of multiplying the mess.  Case in point:  right before typing that line I had to get up to clean up a jar of glitter that Toddler Boy had just dumped on Princess' desk.  How did he get the glitter down from the school supply cabinet?  Princess did it for him.  Moms really do need eyes in the back of their heads when dealing with a 2 and 5 year old.  They conspire against me!

3.  I'm skipped one of my morning runs this week because I seem to be fighting off the beginnings of a sinus infection.  I opted to take the day off and used the extra morning time to drink a cup of green tea with lemon oil extract to try and fight it off.  Toddler Boy has had a bit of a clear runny nose since the weekend and I've been diligently avoiding drinking after him to try to avoid it but obviously it didn't work.  On the plus side, this should add antibodies to my breastmilk so it should help him feel better, faster.  While I was taking the day off I got to read a great encouraging post over at Soul Searching titled practical and spiritual motivators for life long fitness.

4.  It probably didn't help matters that Doug and I stayed up way too late to watch the latest elimination rounds on The Voice (which we had recorded on the DVR).  I guess we could have watched it tonight but we didn't want to risk any spoilers.  We are totally addicted to that show, at least it's one the kids can watch with us.  Our pick for the overall winner is Danielle but we're also huge fans of Amber (who I call Lesley because she looks like my lovely SIL), Sarah, and Holly.  I loved, loved, loved Holly's performance of "How Great Thou Art".  I think it might be one of the best performances of that song I have ever heard.  I also enjoy watching Michelle and Josiah, I was sad to see him go this week.  It appears the country singers are making a sweep this season!

5.  Toddler Boy had an appointment with the pediatric cardiologist this week.  At his last well baby check-up the doctor heard a heart murmur and referred him.  Come to find out he actually has two heart murmurs but thankfully both of them are not serious and he should outgrow them in a few years.  Another crisis averted!

6.  I took all the kids out in public solo a few times this week.  On one of our adventures we received a negative comment from someone.  We normally do not receive these types of comments from strangers and I wasn't present when it was made but my older kids overheard it and told me about it later.  It made me stop to think and re-evaluate the type of presentation we are giving to the general public.  We want to be ambassadors for Christ, we do not want to purposely offend someone with our presence.  I wondered if I or the kids did something rude or offensive to warrant the comment.  I admit the kids were not at their "best" behavior that day, but they were not at their worse either.  I would say, it was more like an average day.  There is something to be said for people just not understand large families also.  It's times like this where I can get weary of all the misunderstandings and always feeling like I and the kids are "on display".  Because it is becoming less common to see a family with more than two or three kids it seems we draw attention everywhere we go.  The adult hostility towards children and what I would deem "normal" kid behavior seems to be getting worse.  Many of the comments we receive are good ones, but occasionally we get the negative ones too.  Why are the negative ones so much easier to remember?  I'm glad summer is here because at least we won't have to answer the age old, "why aren't you in school" question anytime I am out with the kids during school hours (which I honestly try to avoid for this very reason).

7.  We finally got to spend the afternoon at my folk's house (reference Count your Blessings post)!  It was gorgeous weather, nice and cool for this time of year.  It started to rain right before we left.  The kids played with their cousins, jumped on trampolines, climbed treehouses with slides, fished, and basically ran around outside.  I spent most of my time outside with them, thankful for the extra energy to do all of this.  Everyone went to bed early last night!


That's all for this week...head over for more Quick Takes with Jen at Conversion Diary!!

Count Your Blessings

The past few days have been some of those days.  The kind that, from the world's view, look pretty dismal. The pastor at our Protestant church gave a sermon last week focusing on the bible verse Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.  He pointed out that when you can't see God in the circumstances of your life, He hasn't gone anywhere.  If your focus is divided between something else and God then He starts to become a bit fuzzy.  People who have pure hearts, whose hearts are focused first and foremost on God, tend to be able to see God in everything.  He wasn't stating that this is always the case (look at Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and her dark night of the soul).  I do think God sometimes hides His plans and purposes from us.  But I thought the sermon was good food for thought because we can do this to ourselves too.

Jesus and I had a little conversation yesterday about how the week was going thus far and it went something like this...

So Jesus, the kids and I were really looking forward to spending the afternoon at Mom's house Friday, so what's up with our van breaking down on us?  I mean, it couldn't have waited one more day?  It's been busy around here and the break would have been nice...
Yeah, I know you guys were looking forward to it, but the van door really needed to be fixed, it was either that morning at your house or Sunday morning at church and I figured you'd rather have it break on your terms.  It was done a day ahead of schedule so you could have the van back before the end of season soccer awards program.  They even fixed the recall notice issue with the spare tire while they were at it.  I'm sure you wouldn't have wanted that tire falling off as you're driving down the highway.  Besides, I made sure everything was covered under the extended warranty so you didn't have to pay for anything.  Speaking of money, I did send you that $100 medical refund check this week...

Oh yeah, right, thank you for that.  The extra money helped cover our grocery bill this month.  But back to Friday...so what was up with Grandma and Grandpa's sewer line breaking?  I mean, Dad works pretty hard as it is and that was a pretty rough job.
I know your Dad is a hard worker, and he and your uncle did an excellent job digging up and fixing that line in record time.  They thought it might take a few days and it only took one.  Again, the line needed fixing and I chose spring over summer or winter.

So I suppose it would be easier to dig up a line when it wasn't crazy hot or the ground was frozen, but still!
Amy, you know I don't tell you any story but your own, and your Dad has his own story too.

Speaking of my Dad, it was really nice of him to come over and take the dementia raccoon out of my backyard Tuesday morning.  I'm not sure what I would have done without his help.  Lord, considering everything else I was dealing with, well, couldn't you have sent it to the neighbors' house?  Or better yet, to not have it sick in the first place?  The person who raised Lazarus from the dead could have easily healed one little raccoon!
I hold everything in my hand, and it was that raccoon's time to go.  I sent it to your house because your dogs are up to date on their vaccines and the neighbors' dogs are not.  Plus, I knew you and your Dad could handle it and they would have had to pay the $180 to pest control to take it off their hands.  I made sure to keep it away from your dogs and kids.  The raccoon was so sick it was unconscious, which kept it from more pain and made removing it safer and easier.

Moving on...I'm sure You're aware that same afternoon was the day of the Moore, OK tornado.  An elementary school?!  To the one who said "let the little children come unto me"?  You couldn't have delayed that storm a week or two so those kids would have been on summer vacation?  Jesus, you know I trust you, but I've got to admit You're not winning any popularity contests with this, where were you Tuesday afternoon???
Again, I hold ALL things in my hand and you well know where I was that afternoon, I was right there with them.  You know I never promised you that there would not be trouble in your life, but that I would never leave you to walk through it alone.  I didn't leave them to walk through it alone either, all of them are precious to Me.  As for the children who died, rest assure they are all with Me now, more alive than they ever were on earth.  Continue to pray for their families through this time and I will be there to comfort them too.  Take heart, I make all thing new and I will renew them also, in My time.


Lord, please continue to be with all the people in Oklahoma who have lost so much.  Give them wisdom, strength and courage in the days, weeks and months ahead of them as they recover from this storm.  Please help me to remain focused on You and remember to count my blessings ~~ Amen.