I Murdered a Baby Stroller. In Cold Blood.

Christmas was wonderful for my family. The company was awesome, the kids enjoyed the day, and the food was amazing. I really need to thank the cook for a job well done. Oh wait, that's ME! 

The only thing worse than a bad Christmas, is getting the stomach flu the day after Christmas. That's what happened to me. I woke up and puked all morning long. It's always such a disappointment to have such a bad stomach bug when you have so much amazing food leftover that needs to be eaten. So, I spent that whole day in bed or kneeling in front of the toilet. Awesome. 

The next day I woke up feeling a bit better. However, it looked like the Grinch broke into our home and thew Christmas all over the house. The house was just destroyed. I put the kids and I to work cleaning their bedrooms and cleaning the basement of our house. I started tiring quickly, but I was determined to get part of my house in some order. A little bit later, I start wondering where Rowen, my two year old, went. I looked in the laundry room first and the 2 year old in me erupted! I must say, it was not a pretty sight for me. About 30 minutes prior to this moment, I had just gave the cats a full food bowl and filled up their water as well. I had come in and out of the laundry room several times and must of forgot to shut the door.

Rowen had sneaked into the laundry room and put all of the cats food into their water. This may not sound like a big deal to you, but for me.... This happens all too often. Often enough for me to get super pissed about it. I hate wasting that food. It's probably a good $2.00 worth of food now wasted. So I told my kids to stay in their room and I shut the door to the laundry room and have my 2 year old temper tantrum. I grab the only big thing in there which is a toy baby stroller and smashed it repeatedly on the unfinished wall. I raised it high over my head and smashed it again and again against a series of 2x4s. Over and over. The stroller starting buckling and the metal legs quickly broke and splintered. It felt so good!

Funny thing, Joe walked in right at the end. He just raises his eyebrows and said, "Bad day?" I nod and he leaves me to further destroy anything until I feel like my anger is avenged. 

Let me tell you: I murdered that toy baby stroller. In cold blood. It's beyond repair. I'm okay with that. It made me feel better for about 2 minutes! 

It's so ironic that I tell my kids to not get upset at things such as this, but here I go off the deep end. Not only did I go off the deep end, I ran towards it and went head first!

I'm going to claim crazy insanity red-head moment of losing my temper. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Until then, I hope Aviana doesn't come to me asking for the toy baby stroller!

Advent Calendar

Advent is here! So with Advent, brings the joy of preparing for Christmas. Two years ago, my mother in law brought over this little cardboard calendar that you could open numbered doors and inside would be one piece of chocolate. My kids loved this! However, splitting one piece of chocolate 4 ways was not working for my kids. So I scoured the internet (Hello Pintrest!) and came up with my own version. I ended up spending just above $50. 

You will need 
* 3'x4' piece of plywood
*2 1/2 yards of fabric
*quilters blocks
*ribbon
*3D Fabric Paint
*Stencil for the stocking
*staples
*hot glue with gun

This is what the end result looked like:

Merry Christmas!

My Week in review

Thanksgiving has finally come and gone. Now, everybody has their eyes on Christmas. Christmas! Just a few months ago it seemed I was ringing in 2012 and now 2013 is just around the corner. What was I doing that the year just flew by??? I remember back to when I was a kid and remembered when the days just dragged by. No longer, for sure!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, but if you shared my experiences of being sick on the day that was supposed to be special and cheerful, I feel for you! I was sick, but luckily, the brunt of it held off until around 11pm Thanksgiving night--- Just long enough for me to go score a few deals at Walmart on Thanksgiving night! I bought 2 crockpots for just under $10 each. Now I will have 3 crockpots in my household. I'm sure you're kind of like my husband wondering why in the world any mother would need 3 crockpots. Well, I make things in bulk, such as spaghetti sauce and soups and then can it. Then, I will be the one person cooking for 13 adults and 6 children at Christmas. Having the extra crockpots will take off a lot of extra stress. I can make Christmas breakfast in one, have another warming the Christmas ham up and one more for my easy crockpot mashed potatoes. See, I am completely organized!

My other scores included just a simple electric griddle that I've had my eyes on. Of course, since I was at Walmart, I got several movies for a good deal. I love to take the movies and make little "movie night" gift baskets for people for Christmas. I get a good deal and they get a sweet Christmas gift. Although, I must admit, over 3/4 of my Christmas shopping is done. 

So, looking backwards though, I've actually had a rough week leading up to Thanksgiving and had to dig a little deeper to remember I have tons to be grateful for despite my losses for this last week. 

Last Saturday, we had to put one of our cats down because she has been quite sick. The toughest part of doing that was that she was one my daughters more favorite animals. Then later that same day, an accident happened and my dogs got out and my little chihuahua, Malcolm got out also. The big dogs came back but I'm 98% certain the chihuahua got stolen off of our road. No body to find so I don't think he got hit by a car and nothing in the shelters. I am taking this really hard as he was my dog. He curled up to me, he was my running buddy, and when I was sick, he laid by my head. I have very little hope he will return so I am trying to go through the grieving process. I think it would be much easier if I knew a car had run him over by accident versus somebody stopping and putting them into his car to keep. Anyhow, I've shed a lot of tears this week. I have only been attached to one animal before, but nothing compared to what I felt for Malcolm. 

Moving on... This next week my goal is to make a home-made advent calendar for my family. I got all the supplies this last week. I spend $50, but if my idea turns out, it will be well spent for the traditions it will bring my family for years to come! Stay tuned for that!

Happy Holidays everybody! Wellness to the Sick!

Rethinking Christmas

Christmas used to be my favorite time of the year when I was a child. Gifts. Lots of gifts! However, as a child I was strongly misled to believe that gifts were the most important part of Christmas. My parents did the best they could to indulge their kids. I don't blame them. What parent doesn't want to give their child everything?

My goal is to turn that indulgences from tangible things into emotional and memorable. My kids may seem disappointed for a few key years especially when they get to compare what they got for Christmas  versus what some friends received. 

Our generation has a choice to make a difference. I don't want to figure out how I'm going to pay for a day that will end up costing me  $1,000 between gifts and food. According to http://americanresearchgroup.com/holiday/, American's will spend $854 on Christmas gifts in 2012. To me, that is crazy to take anywhere near that much money out of my family's budget just to make everybody feel "happy" for a day. No matter what I do or how much money I spend, what I get will make somebody feel inadequate. 

The first step is to include your kids in every step possible and explain over and over that Christmas is not about the gifts that we receive or give; it's about spending time with the people we love and gifts would mean nothing without the people that gave them. Then, let all the people in your life that normally receive gifts know that the Holiday Seasons will start being different for your family in an effort to teach your children a better meaning of Christmas and to be grateful for the things we already have. Who in the world would be able to argue with that logic???

Then include your kids in making everybody homemade gifts-- something that shows love by time and effort being put into investing into that person. Isn't that what we all want? Somebody to invest into us? Something more than picking something off of a shelf that we won't remember by the time the next Christmas rolls around. 

Pintrest is full of wonderful ideas to make the holidays more memorable for our children. Make memories, not expectations.

Thankful Dinnerware for the Family

Like most parents, I want my children to be grateful for what they have in their lives. We are always together for at least one meal a day and it is my goal this month to make those together meals more meaningful in the time leading up to Thanksgiving. Showing my thankfulness on Facebook is great, but I think my kids are the one that needs to see more than anybody that their mom is grateful and content. 

So while I was at MOPS today, I was struck with a bit of inspiration. On my way home, I stopped at Fred Meyers and got 6 inexpensive beige fabric napkins (the ended up being around $1.30 each). At home I have lots of colorful Sharpies and I printed out some leaf stencils from www.craftjr.com (free).

The photo below is what I crafted in just an hour. My family will write down their thanks at our family meal and we can go around and discuss what and why we wrote. That's the plan. Let's see how well that goes. :)

What are some creative ways that you and your family express thankfulness? 

Dear Society...

Raising kids by today's standards are difficult for the simple fact that: Society wants young children to be well behaved in public, but they don't actually want us to discipline our kids. If we discipline our kids, we are abusing them and CPS needs to get involved. We can't have teaching moments out in public either because it gets in the way of the spectators (supposedly). 

My husband was on the receiving end of some public criticism a few weeks ago at Costco. We were in there picking up just a few items. Rowen decided that he needed down from the cart and then ran off. I mean, he ran. He definately is going to take after mommy and daddy as far as his running career! So, Rowen sprinted down one isle, turned and quickly sprinted down the next isle. Rowen is old enough to know what he was doing. He wanted to be chased. He thought it was fun, but he also knew it was wrong. Joe ran after him and stretched out his hand and managed to grab Rowen's upper arm. He swung him up so he was holding him in the cradle position, although his head was lower than his feet. From Joe's story (I was still with the other kids), an older woman sneered at him and said to him, "I consider that child abuse and you should be reported to CPS the way you handle him." Being that this was Joe's first huge society-step-in, he said he just pretended she had said nothing and then came back to us. Upon his telling the story to me, I said, "Where is she? Let me at her!"I was so peeved for him! Joe is such a good dad. He works hard for us to provide for our family and he treats our kids wonderfully. Actually, in most cases, I'm the disciplinarian. However, I'm just trying to illustrate the frustrations that common parents deal with when being out in society with their children.

Since Rowen is so little for his age, I've had a slew of people as he's progressed from baby stage to baby stage that: he is too little to be sitting up in the cart, he is too young to be eating solid food, he is too little to be walking next to the cart while I shop, etc. The list goes on. 

So with that I want to say:

Dear Society,

When I am out in public with my children, which I have every right to be, please allow me to instruct and use my outing as a hands-on educational tool. I want my kid to thrive and grow up to be a responsible adult but I know for that to happen, I'm going to have to deal with some terribly ugly situations because as any mother's luck would have it, those moments are going to happen regardless of whatever we try to do to prevent it. 

Our kids will always want to push the boundaries and for them, doing it in the very back corner of the store where they're surrounded by a ton of people is the best way to see what mom or dad will do. So please, continue your shopping and ignore my screaming child and my teaching moment. The more looks (nasty or concerned) will only feed my child's behavior. I am not the parent that wants to bribe them to get the behavior I want to see in the store because it never works and next time they will just want more! 

If I so happen to yell back at my child or grab them a little rough, know that in that moment, I don't want to be doing that but I have probably reached the end of my rope. I know I need a lot more grace and this isn't always the way my shopping trips turn out, but this just happened to be one of those days I guess. By God's grace, I want the next shopping trip to be better. And it can if I can get this teaching moment across to my child but I can not do it if you step in and ruin it by thinking you know how to parent my child better than me. 

Know that I love my child more than anything and this one moment that you got to peer into my life does not mean you know what my family's lives must be like. We are a stable home and provide a stable environment for our children. We are Christians and teach our children valuable life lessons (like "Honor thy father and mother"). Some days are great and while others may be not-so-great, our children go to bed every night knowing that mommy and daddy love them very much. So please, when you get that glimpse at the grocery store, let me borrow some grace even if my family may be lacking in it at the moment.

Sincerely,

The Mama that Cares

Don't Drown In Halloween Candy!

In honor up upcoming Halloween, I'm changing the color of my font to orange and black. Exciting for me! Yep, I'm really that lame of a mom that I can get excited about the color of a font!

As Halloween quickly approaches, I see lots of mommies scrambling to get costumes put together for their kids (which can be hard with multiple kids!). I would like to put out there for families that do coordinated family costumes, you are heroes in my book! I find costumes that fit my kids and then am done with it! 

So this blog is not to advise you on costumes. This is about the trick-or-treating night. Whether you are taking your kids trick-or-treating or just to a harvest party, think on safety. 

Helpful tips: 

Buy a strip of reflective tape at a sewing/craft store and cut off some decent strips and put it on the kid's costumes. Most tapes are iron-on adhesives so you don't actually have to sew. 

Before you head out, write your cell phone number on your kids in Sharpie on their arm or the back of their necks. Anywhere where an adult might look. Tell your kids that if you do get separated, find an adult that has other children with them and to show them the spot of the phone number. 

The day of Halloween, my kids and I sit down and talk about what the best part of Halloween is. I'm hammering it into them at a young age that trick-or-treating is a tradition that our family has been doing since Grandma and Grandpa were little kids and we go to show off the costumes and give other people joy from seeing wonderful costumes. I really try to draw the attention off of the candy. Then I tell them when we go trick-or-treating they can have 2 pieces of candy while we trick-or-treat. 

Our Family Rules with the Sacred Candy Collected:

Every kid gets their own bucket to put candy in, but Joe and I then carry a backpack that has extra supplies in it like water and diapers. Every 10 or so houses, we have all the kids dump their buckets of candy into the backpack and then continue on. 

At the end of the evening when we get home, we allow the kids to pick out one piece of candy for how old they are (i.e. Serenity is 6 years old, so she gets 6 pieces of candy). Then we talk about how important it is to give (like we do around Christmas) to the less fortunate who weren't able to go out trick-or-treating and we donate the rest of the candy. I know there are dentists out there that have programs or programs that send candy overseas to our troops. Check in your area for these programs.

Our kids don't cry and whine over this. They are used to it. I don't let them have that much candy any other time of the year, so why would I let this be an exemption to the family rules?

I know I've gotten both positive and negative feedback on our family's method of candy distribution, but let me ask you: Between school Halloween Parties, church parties, trick-or-treating and the slew of other treats that are right around the corner for Thanksgiving, do our kids really need that much junk???

Have fun and Safe Candy Collecting! :D