Today

~I woke up and got up first!

~I'm reading a great book aloud. It's called Secrets Of The Best Choice. It was in those boxes of books that that lady gave me. Everyday has a short story, questions to talk about, and a Bible verse. It has spurred some really good conversations with my big kids b/c there could be many answers that might work. Of course everyone has their opinion. I think there are 3 or 4 of these books that I've pulled out so far.

~Invited 2 more friends to Bible study and I think they will come.

~School school school. I forgot to do grammar and geography. Everyday there is something that I leave off.

~Our frige and pantry are quite bare. Payday tomorrow! I meant to clean them both out really good today but didn't get to it. Tomorrow maybe.

~I went to the pre-op appts with Honey. His sinus surgery is Monday. I looked through lots of magazines and copied down a new recipe.

~Read "new" books to littles.

~CT made cereal for dinner tonight. Lane and 6yo made cookies. Honey and I ate on the way home.

~I found a new photography book for Honey. Still going through those books....

~Talked to Nana on the phone.

~Watched RR. I'm thinking on Super Bowl foods.....just can't decide.

Gone!

LB lost her very last baby tooth last night. Being the sentimental one, she held onto it as long as she could. When it finally fell out, she cried and cried. Yep, it's over for her. No more prizes for lost teeth. A part of childhood that is gone forever.

You'd think I'd be the one to be sad about that. I guess she was sad enough for both of us.

I love you LB and I promise that there will be lots more funner things than teeth in your growing up future!!

Girl Manners

that works for boys too!

I'm reading aloud Personal Help For Girls And Boys by Pearables at teatime. We just finished the chapter on manners. These books are written in an old fashioned way and some things come across funny, while others are quite insightful. Here are some manners that go beyond the "don't talk with food in your mouth". It's sort of common sense sort of things that I probably gripe at my kids about but never saw in print. It got a lot of laughs from my bunch.

~If you drip catsup on your best blouse, get out the cleaning solvent and attend to it yourself.

~Never sniff suspiciously at unfamiliar foods.

~Never sprawl your legs out.

~Never scratch your head at the table.

~Food should be seen and not heard.

~Do not eat and run, or stay until your hostess is on the edge of exhaustion.

~Do not monopolize the conversation or sit in gloomy silence.

~Never send your crackers or bread to a watery grave in your soup.

~Do not pick your teeth.

~Never carry off souvenirs from the table.

Today

~Took my new green purse to church.

~Bought a new car battery.

~Raced a goose.

~I got to listen to the whole sermon! Honey took Z out and sang him to sleep.

~Ate left overs.

~Enjoyed a beautiful day at the park and took some pics.

~I found my planner!!! Oh yes!

~We hardly saw Mayfee Boy as he took a gigantic nap.

~Had blackened salmon and fries for date night. I saved you some, Son.

~Such a better day than yesterday. Actually my day was ok yesterday but Honey's was horrible. Our car got broken into. The other one wouldn't start. Yelled at the kids....we'll skip the details. Let's just say that today was better.

Tagged

Here ya go Love...my modified version

8 Things I'm Passionate About:

1. My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. How I want to be more like Him!
2. My fun and quirky, precious and funny, beautiful and best family
3. My sweet and awesome friends. I miss you!
4. Making my bed.
5. Reading in bed.
6. Trying new stuff in the kitchen. Thank you Rachael, Alton, Paula, Emeril, ....and maybe a little bit of Duff.
7. Date nights with Honey.
8. Bargain shopping.

8 Things I Want To Do Before I Die:

1. Have more babies.
2. Read Meg's book.
3. Travel with Honey to watch my boys' MLS games.
4. Hang out with ALL my adult children.
5. Help raise my grand babies.
6. Go see lots of touristy things.
7. Read all the books I own.
8. Finish all my scrapbooks.


8 Things I Say Often:

1. What happened?
2. Who messed this up?
3. Honey,.....pleeeease??
4. No! Well, ok.
5. Report.
6. Where's my planner?
7. I'm the show.
8. Naptime!

8 (+2) Books I've Read Recently

1. Les Miserables. Got 1/2 through it until SOMEBODYS rented the movie!
2. Fellowship Of The Ring by Tolkien
3. The Preacher Had 10 Kids by Frances Bradsher
4. The Finishing Touch by Chuck Swindoll
5. True Faced by Bill Thrall
6. 1John
7. Secrets of the Best Choice (aloud to the kids)
8. A Child's Story Bible by Catherine Vos (aloud to the kids)
9. Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew
10. Living A Beautiful Life by Alexandra Stoddard


8 Things I've Learned This Year

1. I never want to be a single mom!
2. God's timing is not the same as mine, PTL.
3. Farm life is good except for bugs.
4. New things can be pretty good even if they're not the same as the old things.
5. Goo Gone gets black crayon out of the dryer.
6. Nine children are better than eight.
7. Lock the car.
8. I love my handsome Honey and never want to live a day without him.

8 Things That I Like To Hear:

1. My MP3
2. Honey's IPod
3. 3rd Day
4. Christmas music
5. My kids' laughter
6. Teenage insight
7. The pastor's sermon
8. "Daddy's home!"

A Day With LB

LB lost her next-to-the-last baby tooth last night. As her tooth prize I took her to lunch today. She picked Chilis. Hadn't been there in awhile......maybe since we left AR. We talked and shared her fries.

After that we went to Savers. She got a new pair of jeans, shoes, and a new book. She picked out a new coffee cup for Bird's Valentine present and laughed at the green purse I picked out.

It was a good day.

Pirates Movie

I took CT and Jes to see the Veggie Tales movie today. We had the entire theater to ourselves! It was like a special show just for us. Going to the movies is HUGE for the little boys. Jes sat by me and shared his M&Ms with me. Instead of getting them out of the bag one by one, he would pour out some in his other hand to hold. By the time I was ready for another one it would be nice and sticky. He had lots of fun and was fairly quiet during the whole show. When it was over he looked around and asked, "How do you turn it off?" He is so cute.

A Yummy Warmer Upper

13 years ago when I was pregnant with #2, I was sick with a horrible cold. I had a huge round baby belly and a 2yo that wanted me all the time. My mother-in-law came over and made this for me and took that busy baby girl to her house for the day. I made these last night for Honey and me after the kids were in bed. Everytime I make it it brings back good memories.

1 mug of hot water
1/4 lemon squeezed
1 generous tablespoon of honey
1 candy cane from the Christmas tree

Ummmmm........

He Smiles When He Sleeps

Happy Birthday JOEY

Our good dog Joey is 3!

The boys made some Happy Birthday signs to decorate the room for him.
We're going to make dog and bone shaped sugar cookies for tonight.
I'm cutting a roast to make fajita meat for dinner and he'll get the scraps.
We have doggie treats in the pantry. It'll be a good day for Joe.

~He is big and sweet and obedient.

~He loves being wherever we are.

~We don't have a gate but he won't run off.

~He loves the snow, or the farm, or the water.

~He's a klutz and has a hard time getting a footing on this hard floor. He often slips and falls.

~He growls at workers.

~He LOVES Uncle Steve.

~When G'ma is here he follows her all around the kitchen cause he knows she's a softy.

~He likes to wrestle.

~He lets babies do whatever they want with him.

~He likes other dogs and chases the cat.

Happy Birthday Joe!!

Happy Birthday Mom!

I love you.

Freedoms

There are so many freedoms in being a stay-at-home mom. I have the freedom to make my own schedule and stick to it or not. I can work outside or inside. I can take a break or a nap right in the middle of the day. I can eat whenever I feel like it. I can talk to my kids whenever I want. I can answer the phone and take a personal call or let the answering machine get it. I can wear whatever I feel like or just stay in my pjs.

I finished school with the boys today and spent most of quiet time in the book room. I worked on their school for the rest of the week. I moved things around, cleaned, and organized. I put the gate in front of the doorway to close it off after I left. I don't want any littles getting in there to undo what I did.

There were so many things to do today during quiet time. I enjoy the freedom of choosing which one sounds best. At one point I thought, "Wait I need to work on dinner right now. I forgot what I planned for tonight." But then I decided that it didn't matter. If I didn't have time to do it later I could just pull something out of the freezer. I'm getting quite a lot of freezer meals stored up. That just adds to my freedom!

Today

~I'm so cold! I've been cold all weekend. Tomorrow night it's going to be -5!! That's crazy cold. It's snowing right now. Lots of hot chocolate and soup for us.

~Baby woke up so mad this morning. He woke up yelling an angry cry and I was dead asleep. When I went into his room, he was standing up! That was a first. I'm not sure why he was so mad...maybe he got up there and couldn't get back down.

~Church this morning. I had to take Zekey out today. He's been doing better though. Soon, I think he'll be able to make it for the whole service.

~I took a nap.

~Honey hung our bathroom door! Now every bathroom has a door. Progress.

~The little boys played outside. Actually it was kinda warm during the day. (It's NOT warm now!)

~I did our menu for next week and went to Sams with LB.

~Baked blueberry muffins for breakfast tomorrow. It's hard to save them!

~Honey and I went out to Red Robin for date night. Yummy!

~Meggy's watching the football game. I think tears will flow tonight.

NEXT WEEK.....
Somebody's birthday. Can you guess who?
Bible study at our house.
New recipes to try.
Lots of babysitting for Meg.

Today

~My bread pan and paddles in my bread machine need replacing. When I started looking up replacement parts online I was shocked. It would cost about $70 to replace them! I posted it on my food loop and asked if anyone knew of a good place. A lady in FL has offered me hers just for the cost of shipping! Her bread machine is broken in the garage and it uses the same pan and paddles as mine. Yippee!!

~My boys all lost their soccer games this morning. :( Both games were lost 5-3. Fun anyway though and Jes did much better.

~I cooked spaghetti sauce in the crockpot for lasagna later tonight.
~5 loaves of bread
~yogurt
~6 trays of apples in the dehydrator

~I read some new books to my littles.

~I cleaned some of the crayon out of the dryer. Not done with that one yet.

~Honey took Lane and LB to the movie.

~Had a visit from Emo and Mangnay and showed them how to speed stack.

~LB sold a bag of homemade cereal for $10.

~We all watched the little boys game from this morning and evaluated it. Lane taped it for us. It was almost as fun as watching it in person.

~All is settling down for the night. The littles are in bed and Meggy is sleeping downstairs in order to finish the read aloud she has started with her sisters. I need to get ready for church tomorrow and I'm thinking about trying out a homemade egg nog recipe to surprise Honey.

It's Simple

But not easy.

"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8

Sometimes I get bogged down in what I "should" do to make the day seem good in my own eyes. I tend to pile on plenty of things that seem good to me. But is it what God is asking of me or am I just asking it of myself? I make things much harder than they need to be sometimes.

Today

Today has been a wonderfully quiet day. I woke up so tired. You know that feeling when you get out of bed and feel like you could sleep another 8 hours? I am glad that happened on Friday and not Monday!

~Today was gym day. This was the 2nd one for cup stacking. Since the first cup stacking gym day, my kids have been speed stacking like crazy! They hardly even put them away before someone is pulling them back out. They are all getting pretty fast and always trying to break their last time. It is harder than it looks. Honey and I were playing with them last night. I think my fastest was 47 seconds. Sooo slow considering my kids usually get around a 17!

~We had the soup in the crockpot that didn't get done in time yesterday. It was yummy. I think the flavors married better in the frige overnight. We had it with a loaf of LB's bread and butter. Mal ate 3 bowls!

~Mayfee took one look and declared it "yucky". He ate nothing.

~I took a short nap and feel a little better.

~I shopped the grocery sales. Bread was on sale for $1 a loaf. When I got to the check out it was $1.39. I'm cheap enough to investigate and discover that it was the split top bread that was on sale! Too lazy to put it back and get the right thing, I considered it a learning experience and will know to be more careful next time. I like to keep store bought bread in the freezer b/c no one like homemade bread for burgers or sloppy joes.

~I returned 3 library books while I was out. Our library is about to close for a month for a remodel. Really, I can't imagine it being any better than it already is! We are getting more self-checkout stations. Those are so handy and fast.

~I got to talk to my friend on the phone and hear how the Lord has worked in her life this week. Yay!

~I got orange rolls rising for tea to go with chocolate/strawberry milk. 6yo is COW today and wanted to go to the grocery store with me. He picked choc and strawberry syrup as a special COW treat. It worked out great since the syrup and the milk was on sale too!

~I have pizza dough working in the bread machine for dinner.

~It is snowing like crazy. I had CT pick up dog poop before it was too late. He came in saying it was snowing too hard and the wind was blowing too hard to get it into the bag. Oh no--I turned him around and made him finish the job.

~Honey is home early since he worked late last night.

~I have a little time to read before babies wake up.......

SOMEBODY left a black crayon in his pocket and it went through the dryer. Big mess all over the inside of the dryer. Big mess on a load of clothes. I guess the good thing is that it didn't ruin anything that I care much about....but STILL!! yuck.

Today

~Baby Boy slept till 7am! A good start.

~Lane woke up sick. She's been in bed all day.

~I started soup in the crockpot and breakfast in the oven.

~The house was getting out of hand. I decided to do the day backwards and have us all work on some house cleaning projects first. I've noticed that I have more energy in the morning.

~Flylady has helped me notice some details that I usually miss. Today I cleaned the big kitchen set toy and the doll house in the Zekey's room. Both of these are over 14 yrs old and I don't know if I've ever really taken a soapy rag to either of them. They look better now.

~I cleaned my room and bathroom really nice! I love it and I love my new sink in my bathroom. It made for a nice get away during nap time.

~Honey came home and lunch wasn't ready. I thought that the soup would be done by now. Oh well, we had enough left overs to make do.

~LB made a loaf of bread and a bunch of burgers for tonight's dinner. Great job! She even had to grind the croutons into bread crumbs with the food processor. She took the time to shape a special burger for #1. She's picky about burgers that are too thick.

~I worked in the book room. It's a hopeless mess. But Honey just hung some cabinets in the garage for me to store stuff out there. That ought to help. It looks messier every time I leave that room. Maybe that means progress??

~Mal helped me sweep my room.

~I finished part of the boys' school. Still gotta do math with them. That'll have to come after nap time.

~I gotta make cookies to take to Bible study tonight. Next week it meets over here.
I'm making my friend's cookie recipe that she posted on her blog. These are so yummy *and* healthy. I think she called them WW Oatmeal Cookies. I changed the name to "Hobbs cookies".

~Babies are napping, boys are playing, Lane's still in bed, and the rest are working on school. Gotta get busy on those cookies.

Talking with a friend yesterday and we were wondering....

Why are Mondays so hard?

No matter how well I think I've planned it seems like I'm always behind on Monday and I spend the day catching up to myself. Tuesday is always better, but why can't Monday be good too?

I gotta think of a better Monday plan.

My baby's growing up!

And he can finally crawl! Poor guy just couldn't get going on the hard floor with pants on all the time. I can see how babies would have an easier time learning to crawl in the summer. At 9 months, it's time he got around. He's slow now but soon enough we'll be chasing him everywhere.

He got a tooth! A big top fang! Only one. Kinda goofy looking. He hasn't figured out what it's for since he *still* won't touch solids. He hates everything except crackers. Last night I gave him mashed potatoes. He gaged and choked until he finally threw up. So dramatic.

Speaking of growing up, 6yo announced to me today that he was too big for story time. "That's for babies," he said.

whatever!