Thursday, October 27, 2011

I'm totally insane!

I haven't had a day off in 2 weeks. Looks like I won't have one next week either. I've totally lost my mind. We had to buy a new ride since the saturn and the van have seen better days. We are trying to resurrect the van but the saturn is in the graveyard. So now we have to pay for this new ride, hence all the overtime. It's making me insane I tell ya. There are some other benefits to this crazy schedule I get to attend Avery's b-day party in Texas in just a few weeks and Doug and I get to go see Kamri and Evie in the Nutcracker Ballet in Dec. I'm totally stoked about both of those. I hope my rapid reward flying points add up fast with all this flying back and forth.

We are entering week 3 of no smart phones. :( I'm totally going through withdrawals. My whole life was in that phone and I hate not having it.  I blame this on myself as I had a momentary lapse in judgement and added teenagers to my cell plan. In the 3 years Doug and I have been with Verizon we've never gone over our mins our had an outrageous bill. The teens did it in a month. The younger boys will hate the older ones when it comes time for them to get cell phones, cause my first question will be. Do you have a job? No, well then you have no phone! Alex is already looking for work and he is 9! He asked our landlord if he had any jobs he could do that he needed to make $10 a month. I think he might have found something for him to do. Alex really wants that Lego Universe monthly subscription but mom's just not working overtime for that!


Andy and I went to the Florida Aquarium on Tuesday with the home school group. I was lots of fun and of course he really enjoyed it. Especially getting to see the penguins so up close and personal, since they are his favorite animal. I love our field trips we always have a good time and we get to do lots of fun stuff. I'm really looking for to January's field trip to Lego land! Hooray for group rates otherwise we couldn't go, it's like Disney expensive!

So there is nothing new really going on. Just me trying to make it through each day without losing my mind.


Andy & I at the Aquarium

Getting into the learning side of the Aquarium

Touching the star fish! that water was COLD!

Andy and his best friends Joel (left) and Jake (right)

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Just call me Laura Stewart

I'm having one of those moments when my chest is s a little puffed out and my head is the size of watermelon! I'm quite proud of myself. Maybe I should go back just a little bit. I found a link to a site called Pinterest. There I found all kinds of things to distract me from the things I was supposed to be doing. Among them was this Pin for sheet storage that I just thought was genius so Martha Stewart and it even had a link to the Martha Stewart video for fitted sheet folding which I promptly pinned. (pinterset lingo). I pulled out all the sheets and reorganized away. Now of course my sheets in their cases don't look that neat and nice but the concept works and it solved some problems I was having with sheet storage, so I'm happy.



For years I've been wanting to try my hand at making hand soap, laundry soap, candles and pretty much anything I can make on my own. I have this fascination with all things homemade. Well with rocketing prices I finally decided to try it. I had already research hundreds of recipes for laundry detergent and hand soap. So I had it narrowed down and honestly I took advice from several peoples posts, including my friend who posted her recipe on facebook, and kind made our own. Same with the hand soap. Last night armed with my recipes, all my ingredients and my hubby we ventured in to the world of Laura Ingles days of making your own soaps.

My liquid soap was a little runnier than I wanted but works really well. Works for dishes, hand soap and yes you could even bath the kids with it. It's wonderful! I stored in the cutest little Better Homes & Gardens canning jars. So cute Doug is designing little cute labels for them.

The liquid laundry soap turned out fabulous! I was so proud! I used it today and it is wonderful! It was easier than I thought it would be.

Next was the dishwasher powder, which by the way is fabulous! Super easy and to me easily rivals the name brands.

All in all it was I'd say it was a great success! I'm feeling very frugal and Martha Stewarty!
Next on my list is fabric softener, Bug Spray (off) and anything else I can find to do!  So, I'm totally addicted to Pinterest! There is a ton of cool stuff on there and I'm loving every second! 

Here are some links that I pulled from in my search

Laundry Soap1 
Laundry Soap2
Dishwasher Powder1
Dishwasher Powder2
Liquid Hand Soap - in my research I found this was the easiest recipe out there for what I wanted.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Crap that so backfired!

So I'm trying to convince my seriously funny hubby to start a blog. His would be the blog that would probably become a national treasure. Don't ask me how I know, I just do. I am married to the man after all. There are only 2 conditions to this blog writing, for now at least, 1. he can't write about my pilates experiences and 2. he cant write about my zumba experiences. I, of course, mentioned this to him beforehand and he got the biggest grin. He actually giggles when thinking about this. Somehow I doubt it would stay out the blog. Apparently this is the equivalent to me mentioning my parking block fall to my sister, who still hysterically laughs nearly 20 years later.

I'm not doing a very good job at convincing him to blog. So I enlisted my sister to help out. Epic FAIL! That didn't work either.

A while passes and we're holding hands and his hands are crazy cold. I mention that blogging would help with this because all the fast typing would make his hands warmer.

Doug: I like my hands cold.

me: oh well forget it I really don't know what I'm talking about.

Doug See I don't need to blog, I'm not that funny.

me: Yes, yes you do your hysterical

Doug:  You just said you don't know what your talking about! 

me: Crap that so backfired.

The following are things he wrote when he a myspace account like a thousand years ago and are still funny!


Kids

Dec 2006

Have you really ever paid attention to what your kids do? I mean for the sum of us who have kids. This is a rich and rewarding time in SOME aspect. well I say some because today I finally fix the toilet. What does this have to do with my child you ask? GREAT question.
Well it started about two day's ago when we "my wife and I" were amusing ourselves to the delightful ways of the internet. The kids were posted up at the T.V. watching what we thought was  Cars. Now don't get me wrong we check in on them for sure but some how the little one wanted to go potty so thinking nothing of it he politely lets us know what he is going to go do. I hear the toilet flush and think nothing of it. I hear it again and started to get a little upset, once more the toilet flushes and I scurry in to run him out scolding him of the values of the water bill as his little feet head out the bathroom at 90 miles an hour.
Well the next day the toilet started backing up. The water wouldn't go down properly so I take the ever so trusty Plunger and put it to good use, boy what a topic huh? The water hesitates but goes down. so by the fifth time of this I'm thinking this is crazy right? It never dawned on me that Andrew the day before was in there and might have done something to the toilet.
Finally today I am very sick no voice hardly and I just want to trim my beard and shave get a shower and try to have a peaceful day. My wife come's in and use's the bathroom, flushes it but it keeps running ... I didn't think nothing about it and actually wasn't paying any attention to it do to the fact of paying attention to my own duties. suddenly my feet are getting wet I turn and the toilet is flowing over with joy. Pissed i turn the water off now keep in mind I have no voice hardly and I'm doing my best to be heard. whelp I know what I have to do at this point.
I start working on taking the toilet up being sure to drain it before doing so. I look down the drain and see nothing I'm thinking WTH. So just for chits and giggles I turn the toilet over and look in the bottom , low and behold the momma of all back ups over the past day cause by a frickin McDonald's happy meal toy from the Incredibles, That's right my youngest got the Mcbrilliant idea of flushing a toy down the toilet. I clean the mess but got the wife to get the toy cause I wasn't touching it the big ole man I am and put the thrown of kids back in it's place.
I sit here and laugh at my own stupidity but wonder what was going through his mind at the point of entry 'splash down of Mr. Incredable, and if he really thought it would go away. How is it you can tell a child five times to get up and get ready for school and he doesn't budge but tell him Santa came before your through He's at the tree about to pee his pants to open a gift. How is it a child can not remember what you said not to do five seconds ago 'as he is doing it again' but he tells your pastor that you drank 3 beers swore five times while changing the spark plugs on a 1994 chevy C-15 V-8 automatic because he didn't set the gaps on the plugs right.
GO FIGURE!
Doug

Peace in Chaos

July 2007

Whelp,
Here I am again facing the reality of the world as we all come to realize. Why is it that no matter where you are in life there are certain people that can hone in on how much of a pissy day your having? I mean just for a few examples, You had a bad weekend with the wife with a couple of fights that should have never happened go to work on Monday and out of the blue someone you work with who normally say's nothing to you just intensified the edge you carried over from the weekend. I mean whats the deal???

Bill collectors will do it too. Your in life's mode having a very hard time but your coping with your troubles the best you can and trying very hard to survive and hold on to every piece of sanity you have to make it through and you think to your self, " Self all it's going to take is just one more thing", Low and behold the message was  magically beamed to all your bill collectors and there you are holding a credit card bill for 3000 dollars, a financial statement for a house your behind on that you never owned, a 250.00 dollar electric bill you just payed threatening to turn off your lights,  A vet bill for 500.00's for a pet snake named Mr. slithers you never touched and of course the kick between the legs, Your wife's  Dr. think it would be a great time to play a practical joke and tell you your having triplets. All in less the 24 hours.

Heh, funny enough you then come to terms of your life as you see it in the moment and wonder if you can even afford the bullet it would take to end cruelty. Then you start to wonder with everything else happening you would probably miss and take out the Chevy bus to haul your triplets around in that you just went in debt for because the Dr. was a little late with her punch line. Yet we wonder why there are so many angry people in the world and so much violence.

Just about the time your fixing to rip the arms off the dude that just cut the line in front of you at wally world you get a tug on the pants and in the middle of your rage you look down with intense eye's and there stands your 3 year old with a smile, and he says daddy, that was nice of you to let him in line from the back. You then melt and everything that once was, the core of every angry moment becomes clear to you. For every mistake, for every bad timed punch line or debt owed. we over look the fact that no matter what, It's all how you deal with your situation. Also who is watching you deal with it as well. As you look into your wife's eye's and think how wonderful but chaotic your lives are, there is one thing that was perfect, your children.

then the cashiers rings up a 300.00 dollar food bill when you only have 15 items

sigh so on so forth love is the key.

Doug
                                                           
I'm right aren't I? He needs a blog. He's funny and darn stinkin cute! What more could a girl want. Well there is that one thing... never mind~ :)
Anyhoo, he needs a blog and we all need to drive him insane until he starts one!

Sunday, October 2, 2011

WOW! My kid is cool!

Our brilliant genius level son was nominated to travel with People to People in the summer of 2012. I had never heard of this program so I was a little surprised to get the letter in the mail. I had to go look it up. Alex was invited to travel through Europe in the UK & Ireland. What a cool opportunity! Although I'm not sure how I feel about letting my 5th grader (he would be by then) go to Europe without me. I think it's incredible that he was invited. It's also uber expensive, of course. This is definitely something that we have to pray about about but I just thought it was soooo cool!
My brilliant amazing 9 yr old son!

From the People to People website:

The People to People movement dates back more than half a century to its founding by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956. Eisenhower was acting on his firm belief that direct interaction between ordinary citizens around the world can promote cultural understanding and world peace.
That proud legacy of hope lives on in People to People Ambassador Programs on seven continents. 

Legends of the United Kingdom and Ireland

DESTINATION(S): ENGLAND, IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND WALES
DURATION: 19 DAYS
AUDIENCE: Grades 5th - 6th

London, EnglandGet to know the Beefeaters, official guards of the Tower of London, and learn about the tower’s 10 centuries of rich history.
Gain an insider’s perspective on British government from a current or former Parliament or Cabinet member.
Float past Big Ben and other iconic London landmarks on a Thames riverboat.
Re-create life in the Middle Ages—complete with a medieval banquet.
Experience the ceremonial changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.
Catch a play or musical in the West End, considered the capital of the theater world.
Soar high above the city in the London Eye, the world’s largest Ferris wheel.

Oxford, England

Explore this famous college town and its blend of ancient architecture and modern business.

Warwick, England

Spend an afternoon on the grounds of Warwick Castle, where a medieval encampment brims with music, games, and colorful characters ranging from knights to rat-catchers.
Train to wage war as a knight, and watch the world’s largest trebuchet (catapult) in action.

The Highlands, Scotland

Keep your eyes peeled for signs of Nessie, the legendary lake monster.
Learn how sheepdog puppies are trained to watch over their flocks.
Hike to discover hidden waterfalls and deep mountain pools in stunning Scottish scenery.
Meet a traditional Scotsman, and learn how his regalia honor the country’s history and heritage.
Try on a kilt and kick up your heels during an evening of Scottish culture.

Edinburgh, Scotland

Experience Scotland’s commanding capital city, perched upon the crests of seven hills.
Stroll the Royal Mile, and research the history of Scottish clans.
Explore Edinburgh Castle, from its 12th-century chapel to the 1 o’clock gun.

Blaenavon, Wales

Hear Welsh spoken by local craftsman while exploring St. Fagans, a 16th-century castle turned open-air museum.

Dublin, Ireland

Explore the streets of Dublin, including areas like Grafton Street and Trinity College.
Try your hand at Gaelic football in the Gaelic Athletic Museum.

County Kerry, Ireland

Visit ancient Blarney Castle, and discover the Witch’s Kitchen and other Druid rock formations found on its grounds.
View the breathtaking Gap of Dunloe from a horse-drawn jaunty car.
Soak up the joyous Irish culture during a céilidh, an evening of traditional music and dance.
Admire the dramatic Cliffs of Moher, which plummet 650 feet straight down t