The Big Move

Not a new house.

Just a new bedroom.

Oliver suggested last night that we give up the Master Bedroom to A and JD since you know, all we do in our room is sleep.

We need all the kids to have more space in their rooms to play.
Why do we need them in to play in their rooms more?
Not because I dont enjoy seeing their bright shiney faces.
But because during the course of one evening Oliver and I are constantly bellowing "OUT!" while we try to take 2 minutes in the kitchen to talk, steal a kiss, etc. If we are in any room, the kids are directly behind us listening.
This is just a side effect of having kids I suppose.

But A and JD would get to spread out in the huge room, C and JR get to move up to a bigger room, and that leaves Oliver and I with the little room.
I mean LITTLE
Postage stamp little.
With a King sized bed.

Oliver swears the bed, dresser, and grandmas special chest will fit but I stood in that room today and I just dont see it.

Im afraid.

Maybe we wont hear that they cant play in their rooms because its too messy and they own too much crapthere is no space. Maybe they will actually hang out up there with their video games, and toys, and computers. I think this whole theory is far fetched but Oliver seems convinced.

So next week we will start the move and if Im lucky, while no one is looking I can throw out some stuff.

Thank God Its Over

Man that was a MESS!

A fun, over indulgent, slightly inebriated, mess.


Im so glad we are finished for another 364 days.

Everyone got some good stuff, ate A LOT of food, and drove all over creation. Whew!

I dont need to ramble on about all the stuff we got but I will say that I got a snuggie, and I will add without shame that I am wearing it right now.

Wilson the Chocolate loving chocolate lab seems fine so far but he did eat some MORE chocolate today. He eats dead animals he finds in fields. Im guessing this wont kill him.

I leave you with a few pictures...


A and JD, easily the coolest kids EVER. Obviously.


A and JD with their cat Samantha(also affectionately referred to as "the spawn of Satan")


Oliver and JD and his new PSP


Me, C, and JR


Testing out the new mic


All 4 boys and Spike.

Back to blogging about non-holiday related things tomorrow!

Cheers folks. I hope you all made it out alive.

These are a few of my Favorite Things

The kids are home for Christmas break this week. Just A and JD with us this week and seeing that they are 10 and 11, this should be easy right?

Wrong.

"I'MMMMMMM BOOOORRREEEDDDDD!"

This is all Ive heard this week. Once the video games are turned off for the day they suddenly have NOTHING else to do. You know, a bedroom full of toys and instruments and 14 acres of woods and fields and theres not ONE thing they can do but pick on eachother.



When I do manage to get the kids to go outside they come back in 37 times and track snow across all the floors, leaving me with dirty wet floors, and dirty wet socks. I feel like Ive sunken to SHRIEKING "TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES!! NOT IN THE HOUSE!!"

Lord Help Me.

But! I woke up this morning after getting to sleep in to some glorious sunshine which made the fact that the cat had thrown up on my favorite comfy red chair a little easier to handle.
The boys helped pick up the house without too much pleading.
I painted my nails bright red for Christmas and Oliver made me coffee.

Oh and JR's tiny little Orange Ukulele showed up for Christmas. I dont think Ive ever seen anything so cute in my LIFE.

The big man upstairs

Santa I mean.

We took C and JR to a Christmas party last weekend so they could sit on Santas lap and get a gift.

C made a list for Santa and insisted that we bring it so he could give it to him personally. He held it in the car the whole way there.



The kids got all hopped up on sugar and ran around like crazy people of course.
Untill Santa arrived that is. Then they both sat quietly and waited for their names to be called.

JR got called up first and was so excited he started opening his gift while still on Santas lap.



C's name came a couple minutes later. He ran up with his list. He crawled up onto Santas lap and they read his list together.


Nerf Gun
Nerf Darts
Halo Legos
Santa asked if he could keep the list, for future reference you know, and slid it into his pocket.
C jumped down and ran off to open his gift from Santa.

"A nerf gun! It was on my list! How did he know mom?!"

I just shrugged my shoulders, "Hes a pretty magical guy huh."



He spent the next 24 hours telling anyone who was listening, and a few people who wern't, about how Santa got him EXACTLY what was on his list.

He thinks pretty highly of the guy now.

Lost in Laundry

I just climbed over 2 mountains of laundry(one clean, one dirty) to bring you this blog post. I, quite frankly, am exhausted.

There are 6 of us here. I do the laundry...6 peoples worth of laundry. I mean in a given week I can barely get my own laundry washed and put away let alone 5 other peoples laundry. Im working on something like load 5 or so and there is no end in sight. Ive collected the laundry out of the hall closet(A and JDs spot for dirty clothes), off the bathroom floor, and off the laundry room floor. I havent even gotten to picking up laundry in the boys rooms, or off mine and Olivers floor. Ive washed stray blankets, and towels. Ive piled the couch full of clean clothes. Ive hauled baskets up and down the stairs, back and forth through the house.

Ugh.

A and JD are supposed to be learning to put their own laundry away but it usually ends up stashed in some corner of the closet, under a dresser or bed, or thrown onto a shelf someplace. Putting their own laundry away was supposed to help remedy the whine I hear every single morning... "I cant find any pants/sock/underware..." It wasnt worked so far. I guess its hard to locate your pants/sock/underware when its wadded in the corner of the closet or under the bed.

*eye roll*

C will put away his laundry as long as you show him was drawers it goes in which is getting there.... I fully expect him to be able to put away his own laundry within the next year. Which he of course will not do but will throw it into a corner or under something just like A and JD.

Le Sigh

So here I sit amid piles of laundry, fighting off the last bit of a ridiculous head cold, And Ive completely given up.
Im watching football and drinking a beer, resting an elbow on a pile of jeans and my leg on a basket of shirts. Im on laundry strike...

Which is unfortunate becuase I still dont have any clean underware.

Happy Saturday

Winter is well on its way and in Michigan that means lots of snowy, wet, dreary days. Since it was beautiful outside today and not terribly cold and windy I thought I'd take JR out for a walk, for his sake and mine.

He brought binoculars because he wanted to find deer but of course, there is no way an awake 2 year old can be quiet enough to sneek up on a deer.

Onward with the picture post...




Your sign does not trick me. I hear the gunfire constantly. Hopefully no one is feeling perticularly Saint Hubert-esque today out here.


We wandered around the back of the barn to get into the horse pen.


Amen Brotha. You wont find me in there.


Im sending him out to pasture. He even has his choice of 2 pastures. He picked the one on the left.


The house from the bottom of the pasture


He was feeling conflicted. He really wanted to explore but he wanted to hold mommys hand while doing it. Unfortunately, mommy made it clear she wasnt going any further into the weeds.


Hungry Hungry Horses?


Thanks for exploring with us!

The childless and their grandious delusions about parenthood

My beautiful younger childless(but not for long) sister called me last night.
"How do your kids act in the store?"
"Depends on the day I guess."
"Ok but usually... Usually how do they act?"
"There is no "usual" kind of behavior in the store," I said flatly thinking of how I could explain the elaborate mathmatical equation I use for figuring out how they are MOST LIKELY to behave in the store on any given trip.
"But would you just let them throw a tantrum in the store?"
"Look," I said, "If you are going to have a self rightous moment where you swear you will never let your precious angel throw a fit in the store Im going to knock you off your pedistal right now. We all think for a hot minute that we have these amazing well behaved children who would never do that but its a TRICK! It will happen. Maybe not until they are three but it will show up."
I think that was followed by a pause, some nervous laughter as it perhaps set in, and then was followed by a story about the sugared up ill behaved children she encounters at work every day.

Whew.

Im sure glad I didnt actually hear "I will NEVER let my kid act that way" because I would hate to have to reach through the phone and slap a pregnant woman.

Its like those people who swear their kid will never be dirty, with snot from ear to ear which has also inevitably attracted every piece of lint, pet hair, and dirt in the house.
I took JR to the store last night for a quick trip to get laundry soap since Oliver was in the middle of a laundry marathon. I swear, I looked right at him as I strapped his shoes on and zipped his coat. I saw nothing dirty about the childs face.
Of course, the second we got under the bright lights of our local grocery store, every bit of crusted snot, dirt, and hair on his face stood out like it was neon.

Ive realized that its a loosing battle... especially with JR. Hell even with me. I cant tell you the number of times this school year that Ive unknowingly dropped C off with pancake batter crusted to my hair/ear/cheek/shirt.

I just keep my head low and hope the other moms are all too worried about their bedhead to notice what food item has worked its way into mine.

And we're off!

We are back on the parenting train tonight. C and JR have returned from dads house! The house is filled with the joyful sounds of Oliver throwing out thinly veiled threats as he wreastles the kids into bed and I can hear the indignation in their little voices in return.
One of the biggest tension points in our house revolves around the kids playing too close to the huge plasma tv. C has aspergers which along with other weird quirks, he "dances", flapping his arms and dancing on his toes. JR is just a nut because hes two and a half. These two things combined cause Oliver a huge amount of stress about his poor tv. Tonight we reached a solution that works for everyone....

A circle of painters tape on the floor around the tv and then, "If I find you inside that tape I will *insert your favorite child friendly threat of bodily harm here*" and the children nodding and staring at us wide eyed.
Now that Im not on constant vigil making sure the children stay away from the tv, I can focus my energy on keeping the children away from the dogs. The dogs have fleas. FLEAS! Thats not even what concerns me. What concerns me is that we put flea junk on them today and Im completely terrified that the children will get it on themselves and then best case scenerio they give me grandchildren in the future with 3 eyes. Worst case scenerio I never get grandchildren because they die from some odd chemical poisoning.
Irrational? Maybe. Do I care? Of course not.
So I spent my evening shriekingasking them kindly to please not touch the dogs or cats.
We also made cake in an effort to turn on the oven and warm up the house...
and because Im addicted to cake. I only had to wipe one egg off the floor after JR "helped" and a quarter of the batter off the walls after C "mixed".
Just when I though relaxation was iminent seeing as the children have drifted off to sleep Oliver asked me to proof read the paper hes writting. He has many convictions and one of them is genetically modified corn. I wont lie. I couldnt care less. Im sure its important. And I do my best to be interested because I know its important to him.
Another beer and I'll be warmly receptive to all of this corn mumbo jumbo.

The Grown-Ups only weekend! Ok we're actually just playing video games too

Every other weekend Oliver and I have a child-free weekend while all 4 boys are off visiting their other parent. Our scheduals are completely wonky at first glance but when you look a little harder you'll notice that we have time with just my boys, time with just his boys, all 6 of us together, and then some time for just Oliver and I. Every 2 weeks its a constant rotation. Really as far as custody issues go, I think it works out great. We are still trying to locate someone who will also take the dogs and cats away for the weekend too.

For the last month every single weekend has been us constantly running around. We have had all kinds of plans and places to be and it had just gotten ridiculous.

I declared this "Do Not Disturb" weekend.

A and JD left this morning for school and we wont see them again until Monday, C and JR will return to the house on Sunday. That mean from 8am today untill 6pm on Sunday we are doing nothing. Or rather, we're doing whatever we want and doing it in our own time. Mostly I think Oliver wants to stock up on food and beer and spend the weekend relaxing by the fire. I have some things I would like to do.... if I get around to it. Mainly taking the dogs to the beach for a run(them, not me. I dont run) and perhaps putting away laundry.

I might even look around to see if there is any decent live music around which is never an easy task. We live in a town with less than a thousand year round residents and this is the off season. Its not a very happenin place these days but one can always hold out hope.

And with that, my Do Not Disturb weekend starts. Ive been trying to decide how much personal information to devulge in this blog. Seems like the general viewing public would have an easier time understanding, and I would have an easier time writting if you all knew where we live.

I'll sleep on it.