This is what it feels like to be social

Today we had the opportunity to go to a Papa Johns Pizza and make our own pizzas.  It was a field trip set up with the homeschool group I joined back in October.  This is the first outing we've gone on with them. 

We got to keep these awesome aprons!

#1 went with another group so I don't have 

any pics of her.

Believe it or not, I'm not entirely comfortable meeting new people.  I can do it and I don't necessarily hate it, but I think if we were all honest we would say that it is easier to just stick with the people you already know and the friends you have instead of branching out and making new friends.  Unfortunately, with the move I had no other option other than making new friends.  It's not exactly easy for the girls either.  I wouldn't consider any of them shy, but it's just plain hard to make new friends. 

It's hard to see, but their aprons are covered in flour

But we all buckled down and guess what?  We all made new friends.  I met a couple of moms with children the same age as the girls.  I really hit it off with a couple of them.  The girls had fun playing with the other children.  And best of all--we got to eat pizza and play at the park!  In addition, I found out about a few other homeschooling groups in the area that don't have websites that I can now contact and hopefully have even more opportunities to get out of the house a little more!  I had forgotten how good it feels to go out and do something fun.  I'm looking forward to settling in here even more and making friends for myself and for my girls!

Feeding the crowd

I made dinner tonight for everyone at church.  The congregation here has a meal before services every Wednesday night.  I'm not sure why they started.  And to be perfectly honest, when we first moved here I wasn't so sure I was going to like it.  Turns out, I actually enjoy it quite a bit.  First of all, it isn't a potluck.  One person provides the entire meal for everyone and we rotate who cooks by signing up for it.  That means that I only have to cook one Wednesday night every 6-8 weeks.  Granted, that one time I have to cook is quite an undertaking, but still.  5-7 weeks off, even for one night a week is awesome!

The first time it was my turn I was actually nervous.  Trying to come up with something that you think everyone is going to like can be a little nerve racking.  But I finally decided on taco salad and it went over pretty well.  Everyone especially loved the brownies I made.  I take no credit--they came from a box. 

The second time it was my turn I made white chili.  I've never had so many people ask me what a dish was in my entire life.  Or so many looks of trepidation when they tasted it.  I think most of them told me they were pleasantly surprised that it was pretty good.  I chose not to look too closely at the trash cans to see how much was thrown out.  Ignorance is bliss!

So tonight was my turn again. I considered chicken enchiladas, but that is what I make for pot-lucks.  I don't want to make them eat the enchiladas too often, then I would have to stop bringing them to the pot-lucks.  Right now I always come home with an empty dish so I decided not to mess with a good thing.  So I went back to taco salad.  I figured it had been about three months since I made it the first time.  I was feeling pretty good about how it all turned out until one of the elders walked in tonight, looked at the food and exclaimed, "It must be Anita's night to cook!"  I never did find out exactly what he meant by that, although I believe the general gist was that I can be counted on to bring something Mexican related.  I tried to tell him that the white chili wasn't even close to a Mexican dish, but he just smiled at me and shook his head.  I told him that since I was in such a rut next time I was going to only bring turnip greens and it would serve him right.  Unfortunately for me, he actually loves those nasty things so he would enjoy that meal.  Cajuns...

The plus side to all of this, is that even if I am constantly bringing food to this congregation that they don't know what to do with, they all love the desserts I make.  Most of them have gone over pretty well.  So even if most of the actual food gets thrown away, at least I can enjoy the compliments about the desserts!

Friends

You know those friends who are true friends?  Those friends that really can just come over whenever and you have no qualms about how picked up your house is or if there are dirty dishes in the sink?  Or that you can go to their house whenever just because and always feel welcome.  We had those friends before we moved, the E's.  Amazingly enough I was friends with the wife and Hubby was friends with the husband and all our girls were friends.  It happens, just not that often. 

To be perfectly honest, I was a little afraid of what our friendship would become once we moved.  I knew we would have the best intentions of staying in touch, but both of our families are busy with our lives.  Neither Mrs. E or myself are the type to write each other an email every day.  I know our Hubbies have talked several times, but that doesn't necessarily help the Mrs. and I.  Back in October my Hubby took our girls and went camping with the E's when I went from my Grandma's funeral.  Good for the Hubbies to catch up and our girls to enjoy each other, but again, not very helpful for my friendship with Mrs. E.

When the E's called several weeks ago and asked if they could come stay with us for the weekend, we were all excited and looked forward to them coming.  And you know what?  It was like we hadn't been in two different states for the past 4 months.  We were all completely comfortable with each other.  Having an extra 5 people in our home wasn't any more stressful than having family here.  All our girls played with each other just like they always have.  The Hubbies started several discussions about the church and basically had many "preacher" discussions.  Mrs. E and I shared the same snarky attitude we always have, and the ability to laugh about the same things. 

All the girls together

I'm so thankful to know that even though we don't live in the same town and see each other several times a week, our friendship can remain strong.  The knowledge that we can get together after many months of not seeing each other and pick back up right where we left off is such a blessing.  And the best part is that it is a blessing for myself, Hubby and our girls!

I can be crafty!

***I apologize for the length of this post.  I thought I had moved on from the trauma this caused me, but once I started I realized I'm still scarred.  

I would not consider myself to be a crafty person.  I like the idea of crafting, just not the actual process.  I like getting everything organized and sorted out and lists made of what all I am going to need.  Because I'm a list person.  But I really dislike the clean-up.  Even if it is just me, having to get everything cleaned up when I'm tired and grouchy after doing the craft is a pain.  Not to mention the fact that I have never once had a craft go according the plan.  Ever. 

As for doing crafts with the girls, kill me now!  I wish I was the type of Mom who loved to do crafts with my children.  My girls certainly like doing them.  But I can not stand doing it with them.  Not only do they make a huge mess, regardless of what it is we are actually making, they very rarely do it correctly.  Imagine that, a child not being able to flawlessly execute a craft that I myself can not seem to make look right.  And even though my head knows this, my oh-so-carefully-kept-under-control control freak nature is driven absolutely nuts when my 8 year old does not evenly space the jewels she is gluing to the paper.  Now, before you think I'm a completely awful person, I have never taken a project away from my child to do it for them because theirs doesn't look right.  But I secretly want to. And it makes me twitch that I can't.  So you will rarely see me sitting down to craft. 

Despite all this, for some inexplicable reason, I decided that I would make a large majority of the Christmas gifts to give out to family this year.  I blame Pinterest and my friend B for guilting me into joining.  She knows who she is.  Most of them turned out OK.  None of them turned out as planned.  And I have already instructed Hubby to remind me of everything I went through to make all this stuff next year if I should happen to temporarily lose my sanity again.  Here are a few of the things I made.

Cinnamon applesauce ornaments.  They're kind of cute, they smell really good.  Baby Girl #3 was able to help me with them.  However, once done I wondered if they had any true functionality.  The thought was to have them for several years to help the house smell good.  I gave several away to different people and I still have quite a few.  If they still smell good next year it will have been worth it.

Multi-colored crayons.  Made for Baby Girl #4 and the two cousins that are close to her age.  You basically melt down several pieces of different crayons.  Turned out OK.  Uglier than I thought.  This is probably due to the fact that I was so desperate to not have to peel the paper off 100 crayons that I recruited Baby Girls #1 and #2 to do it for me.  They apparently decided that all the gray, black and brown ones should be done first.  They were probably conspiring against me because I won't do any crafts with them.

Cute, right?  WORST CRAFT EVER!!!!!!!  It seemed like the simplest craft.  Cut some cord and some old t-shirts up, braid them together and then glue a magnet on each end.  I was even going to have #1 and #2 help with this one.  Only to discover #2 doesn't know how to braid.  News to me!  #1 has known for a while and #3 just recently taught herself as well.  I just assumed #2 had taught herself as well.  That was not the case.  Also, the lady whose blog I read on how to do this simply stated, "Glue a magnet on the end with tacky glue".  Did she mention that tacky glue takes forever to dry?  Or that if you try to put it down after 30 minutes thinking it is dry enough that the magnet will fall off because it is not, in fact, dry at all?  Did she mention that the magnets themselves are a real pain to find in a craft store, or that the size of the magnet matters?  Did she mention that if you try to order magnets online because you can not find the right size in 5 different stores that they might not be strong enough to actually hold the ends of a bracelet together?  Or that if you try to switch to a hot glue gun because you have wasted hours of your life and only finished one stupid bracelet that it will not work if you already put tacky glue on the bracelet?  In case you have missed the sarcastic tone, no, she did not mention any of that.  I could go on with several more things that went wrong.  Suffice it to say, I made several of the bracelets for my girls and their friends.  I don't know if any of them can be worn.  And I don't really care at all.  If I never see those bracelets again I'll be fine with that.

This was my favorite.  It didn't turn out as planned either, but at this point I didn't care at all.  I made one for my Mom and made one for myself at the same time.  I really liked it and it's a little awkward to ask someone to make something for you. In case you're wondering, my Mom and I both have a tendency to snort when we start laughing really hard.  I love it when my Mom does it, it makes everyone else laugh even harder.  It's not so cute when I do it, but I'm usually laughing too hard at that point to care what other people think about my laugh.

That's all the pictures I have.  I made some other things--sugar scrubs that turned out OK, rice bags that you can heat up, bath crayons for the little girls that are basically colored soap, some seek and find bags.  I don't know how much everyone will use what I made for them.  At this point I just hope they lie to me and tell me they use it all the time.  Until next December when they admit that it has just sat in their home not being used so that I can quell any desire to make anything for anyone.  EVER AGAIN!

Baby Girl #3's birthday

Poor kid has a birthday just over a week after Christmas.  Since my own birthday is exactly two weeks after Christmas I am aware of how much it actually stinks.  It's not that I didn't get enough gifts or attention growing up on my birthday.  It's just that everyone is always so partied out from Christmas that there isn't much celebration left in them when it comes time for your birthday.  The one good thing is that we're usually around extended family for Christmas which means I'm able to throw a celebration for her in there somewhere.  So far she doesn't seem to mind.

This year we were up at my parents' and my brother (D) and his wife and daughter were coming up a couple of days before our family Christmas.  #3 had told me multiple times she wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese for her birthday.  I really dislike that place.  I'm not exactly sure why.  It is entirely possible that I dislike it solely based on the cliche aspect of it.  And the fact that it always seems dirty to me.  And that I have never been to one where I did not see a child climbing on the ski-ball machine.  (Once it was my child--but that's another story).  Regardless, I did not want to do Chuck E Cheese.  Instead, I thought we could go to a place called Incredible Pizza, which as it turns out is now called Gatti Town.

Gatti Town is like a grown up version of Chuck E Cheese.  There is a Pizza/Salad/Dessert Bar that is all you can eat for as long as you are there.  And you put money on a card for the games instead of having to carry 4 cups filled with a million tokens.  There are also a lot more games that actual adults can enjoy like putt-putt and go-carts and miniature bowling.  But also plenty of kid games as well.

Baby Girls #1, 2 and 3 with Uncle on Bumper Cars.  Baby Girl #4 and cousin are looking on morosely because they are too short to ride.

Baby Girls #1 and #2 on the go-carts

 I had a good plan.  We went on a Thursday and got there about 3:30.  My plan was to play first and then eat and then leave, missing most of the evening crowd.  It didn't quite work out that way.  Which is OK.  One of my other brothers (S) was able to get off work a little early so he was able to come, so the extra stress was worth it.  But seriously, it is so stressful to me to try to keep track of 4 children, make sure they all get to play and do everything they really want to, count tickets, and then take 15 minutes at a crowded counter to decide whether they want a pencil or plastic ring.  I had 6 other adults there with me and I still left completely exhausted, and quite frankly, a little hungry.  All you can eat doesn't help when you're trying to make sure your children get everything they want.  Don't get me wrong, my family did most of the work for me.  But I try to not just assume they will handle everything so I was constantly jumping up to get another breadstick or refill a drink.

Baby Girl #3 actually enjoyed the little kid section more than anything

She loved this train

So we left a little later than planned.  And then we swung by my brother (S) and his wife's place so brother (D) and family could see their new house.  One does not simply "stop by real quick" in my family.  Our quick stops involve making a pot of coffee.  But luckily I have done this before so I knew to bring the girls' PJs for them to change in to.  We had an hour and half drive home.  Made slightly longer due to the fact that even though I have made the drive several times in my life, and was actually following my Dad, I was talking instead of paying attention and took the wrong exit.  Onto a turnpike.  For those of you who are not familiar with the Oklahoma turnpikes, suffice it to say we had to go several miles down the road in order to turn around.

We made it home around 11, all the girls went right bed and the adults were not far behind.  I was pretty proud of myself for being able to give Baby Girl #3 a celebration at a pizza/party place, even if it wasn't Chuck E Cheese, and even if it wasn't on her actual birthday.  That proud moment disappeared on her actual birthday when she asked me what we were going to do for her birthday and then got a blank look when I explained that Gatti Town was her party.  *Sigh*

Our Christmas

The majority of my family was able to get together on the 29th for our family's Christmas gathering.  Hubby didn't come with the girls and I because I was going to be at my parents' for two weeks.  My older brother and his wife spent Thanksgiving with us so they were with her family for Christmas.  Everyone else was there though, even my sister's fiance who drove 10 hours round trip just to be able to spend a few hours with us.

My family is not huge on traditions.  We decided several years ago as more of "us kids" were getting married that we would plan on celebrating Christmas whenever the most of us could get together.  One of my brothers is a State Trooper and he works a lot of holidays.  Hubby usually isn't going to be taking off any time around the holidays because he's expected to be at home for the congregation.  So we work around everyone's schedules to include as many as we can. We figure as long as we're together, the actual day isn't as important.

The one tradition we do have?  We have a scavenger hunt every Christmas.  Mom and Dad started doing one, I don't even know how long ago.  We used to have it just around their house, but the in-laws started complaining that it wasn't really fair since they hadn't grown up there and how were they supposed to know where the dog was buried?  Whiners!  Anyway, this year Mom and Dad went all out and actually gave items to several church members, gave us the addresses and we had to map it out on GPS and then figure out who had what.  It was a lot of fun. Although the driver in my car was the Trooper brother, and I'm not crazy about what a stickler he seems to be for the "laws of the land" such as the speed limit.  Anyway, it's the one thing we have all decided needs to be done every year.  I sometimes think my parents wish they hadn't ever started this tradition, but we all tell them they have no one to blame but themselves!

After the scavenger hunt we opened gifts and ate a laid back meal of enchilada pie.  If you've never had it, you've missed out!  I gotta say--my family is loud when we all get together!  Even when there were 8 of us living in the the house when my siblings and I were all at home my parents' house seemed plenty big.  (Most of the time!)  However, when there were 17 of us talking, opening gifts, and eating it seemed a little cramped!  But you know what?  I wouldn't change it.  I'm so thankful I was able to spend time with all of them.  And let's be honest--anyone who knows me knows that I'm not what you would normally term a quiet person.  We're all pretty loud, and I love it!

It's my Birthday!

And I did a whole lot of nothing!  I had a tuna fish sandwich for lunch and tacos for dinner.  We were late getting home from our trip so school had to start today.  I got to open all my gifts early so I had nothing to open today.  Baby Girl #1 made cookies after dinner but since Hubby and I started counting points today I can't eat more than one. 

And you know what?  I'm OK with my day being like that.  The gifts that I did get were pretty awesome.  Hubby fixed my wedding ring that has been broken for several months!  He also got me a certificate for a massage and money to go and do anything I want to for an entire day.  I'm really looking forward to that day, whenever it comes.  My parents got me a bracelet that I love.  Hubby is making my favorite breakfast for brunch on Friday. 

So my actual birthday wasn't one that will go down for the most spectacular day of my life.  That's OK.  My blessings are many.  And if the gifts and breakfasts and special treatment get drawn out over several days instead of being all in one that may be even better.  That's just that many more days that I get to say, "But we're celebrating my birthday!" to get out of cleaning the dinner dishes!

Finally home

We are finally back home.  We're two days later than what I planned thanks to a fever that made its way through each of the girls, one day at a time.  Baby Girl #3 was actually sick on her birthday!  Poor girl was miserable.  But we're mostly all better, and we are so happy to be back home.  I missed Hubby and the girls missed their Daddy. 

I'll do a re-cap of the last several weeks over the next several days hopefully.  We had a lot going on, but we had a wonderful holiday season.  We're thankful for the time we got to spend with family and for all the blessings God has given us.  God is so Good!

Who has time to write a blog post?

I am back together with all my girls!  The littles and I headed up to my parents' house on Thursday and Friday.  Let me just say that I am so glad that my brother and his family live almost exactly halfway between my house and my parents.  I could have made the 10-14 hour trip (if you have little ones you understand why the trip time could be either 10 or 14 hours) by myself, but I'm really glad I didn't have to.  We stayed the night Thursday night at my brother's.  When we got up Friday morning and ate breakfast I was washing our dishes and Baby Girl #3 asked if I had to wash the dishes.  I explained to her that when you visit someone's home it is always nice to leave the house as nice or nicer than when you got there.  That way if you ever want to visit again they will look forward to you coming instead of dreading it.  Then I told my brother about the conversation and informed him that I intend to be visiting a lot, whenever we travel back and forth to see the grandparents!  Luckily we all get along and our visits are always fun!

I miss Hubby a lot, but it is nice to be back with my parents and be getting ready to enjoy the week with my family.  Hubby told me a little while ago that one of our elders told him today that he should come up here this week so that he could be with us for Christmas even though technically he doesn't have the vacation time to be able to do that.  Unfortunately, Hubby has a funeral to do in Houston this week so he couldn't come up anyway, but it means so much to us that our elders offered to let him take the extra time.  It's nice that they feel that way even though we've only be there for about 4 months.  This move has been tough on us, but things like that make it easier to feel like we're really a part of the congregation. 

So now I have all the presents wrapped, goodies made and bag unpacked.  All that is left is to unwrap all the gifts and enjoy spending time with family.  I'm looking forward to not having to do anything that I don't actually want to!  I hope all of you have a wonderful week filled with love and laughter.  To any of you who are having a difficult time due to a loss or dealing with any depression, I may not know exactly who you are or what you are dealing with, but I will be praying for you. 

Perspective

We've been having some problems with our Suburban lately.  Hubby has tried a couple of different tricks to try and fix it himself.  We thought we had it taken care of, but yesterday a light popped on again and we realized that we were going to have to take it in and have it repaired. 

Praise God we have the money to get it fixed!  The down side is that that leaves us with zero dollars in savings.  Which isn't all that different than it has been for the last several years.  Any time we finally are able to put money into savings something big comes up that we end up having to pay for.  We are thankful that we've been able to pay cash for so many things that have come up the last few years.  But we also struggle with the frustration of not having money put aside. 

But with the shooting today in Connecticut, everything seems to have come into sharper focus.  Today I have my two youngest with me safe and sound.  My 5 year old was not at a school today that had a mad man come in and kill innocent babies.  I know that my older two are also safe.  Hubby and I are healthy and our children are healthy. 

So what if we have to pay for the water pump to be fixed?  So what if we have to be careful with our finances because we have no savings?  I'm not sitting at home tonight, staring at presents that my child will never open.  I will not have to navigate the next hours and days and months and years with a void in my heart that my child once filled.  I do not have an adult family member who will be missing at the family dinner this year.  So tonight I praise God that my children and my spouse are safe and whole.  I pray for those who did lose their children and their loved ones.  I cry for the pain they must be feeling. 

But through it all, I feel an overwhelming thankfulness that even in times when we can't understand why something happens, we have the knowledge that one day God himself will wipe away our tears. 

The Littles

We are still down to just two girls, but now we have the littlest two.  I was totally prepared for the next two weeks to be more difficult with the little ones instead of the big ones.  But so far it hasn't been too bad.  Yes, one of the girls is completely dependent on us for everything still.  Except for getting her drink in and out of the fridge, she can't do much on her own.  And while Baby Girl #3 is doing extremely well learning to read, she is still not able to read real books on her own.  Which means that on rainy days like today she needs some major distractions since she can't play outside.  Add to that the fact that the big girl's chores have fallen back on my shoulders, I was thinking that I wouldn't have much time to do anything around here.

But I forgot one huge factor.  School for a Kindergartener takes MUCH less time than a 3rd grader and 5th grader.  I'm talking an hour tops and we're done.  Well, at least I'm done with my part.  It might take her a little longer to get done with handwriting.  But seriously, I had forgotten how quickly I can get done with just #3.  It was a nice surprise today to be able to do 6 loads of laundry, an hour trip to Wal-Mart and everything else involved in the day after doing school this morning.  So now I'm not worried about not having enough time for everything so much.

The one bad thing out of all of this?  I'm not actually going to have much of a break from school.  The girls will each have about 4 weeks off because of the trips to the grandparent's and the actual holidays.  But since I'm going to be doing school with #3 until the 21st and then taking some math for the older ones to do while we're at my parent's, I'm not going to have many days that I don't have to worry about school at all.  Oh well--hubby is going to make sure I have the day off for my birthday.  Since this school year was thrown out of whack with the move I'm going to be thankful for the small things!

We might have gotten something right

The other day Hubby and I were talking on the phone to the younger girls.  Then I hear the older two in the back of the car asking if they could talk to their sisters as well.  This surprised me since just a few days before they were talking about how nice it was going to be to not have their sisters around.  Listening to them on the phone I was happy to hear them be genuinely interested in what the little ones were doing and they engaged #4 in a real conversation. 

I had a nice "ah ha" moment where I turned to Hubby and told him that this is what we had been working for ever since we had more than one child.  That bond between siblings that is real and everlasting.  Caring about each other and wanting to be a part of each others lives instead of viewing each other as annoyances to be shoved aside for other friends their own age.  This is what we want for our children!  It reminded me of a quote I saw recently that said, "Don't become so caught up in raising a good kid that you forget you already have one."  It felt nice to believe that maybe, just maybe, Hubby and I were doing something right.

And then we got home and I saw that #1 and #2 hadn't done their chores for the day like they were told to before we left.  Oh well, one battle at a time!

Feelings...

You know you're singing the song in your head too!  I actually don't know that I know more than the first five words of that song!  Nope, just thought about it and I don't know anymore words!

Yesterday Hubby and the older girls and I had a great day.  We decorated the tree, did a little shopping, went to see a movie (Rise of the Guardians is awesome) and then had dinner together.  I enjoyed all of it, but I felt a little weepy all day.  The kind where I felt on the verge of tears almost constantly.  We were going so much that I didn't really try to figure out why I felt that way until after the girls had gone to bed and I had a few minutes of quiet.  And I realized that I was just missing my Grandma.

I don't know what set it off.  Maybe the decorations I put up that used to be at her house?  Maybe it was putting away her picture to put up other Christmas decorations.  Or maybe I am just sad and it has to come out sometimes.  I honestly don't know.  I wish I did.  I think I've mentioned before that this whole grief thing is new to me.  I've found myself lately thinking a lot about Grandma's last days and the pain she was in.  I have a hard time wrenching my mind off of that and remembering better times, when she was healthy.  Is that normal?  I don't know that either. 

But it got me to thinking about all the people who have lost those who they are really close to.  Parents, spouses, children.  I can't imagine that pain.  I loved my Grandma and considered myself close to her, but it wasn't the same as losing someone really close to me.  I have already found myself wishing that it didn't hurt so bad.  How does someone who loses a spouse or a child walk through that pain?  How can they function in the normal day to day life? 

If losing my Grandma teaches me nothing else, I hope that I am able to be more sensitive to those who have lost a loved one.  To remember that while they may look ok on the outside, they are still grieving on the inside.  To remember that the grief process lasts so much longer than most people realize, and to give that person the time and space they need to grieve.  To remember to guard my tongue carefully lest something I say unthinkingly causes more pain.  And to remember to show that person months and years down the road that I have not forgotten their loss.  But most importantly of all, to pray for those who are grieving, as often as I think of them.  That God would grant them a measure of peace as they wade through their new life without their loved one in it and that they would always remember how much He truly loves them. 

I think Grandma would be glad that even in her passing, she is still teaching me how to be a better person.

A tree that actually smells!

We finally got a Christmas tree that smells like a Christmas tree!  We had an artificial tree for several years.  That was for me.  So much easier to just pull it out and have the lights already on there and we had one that looked pretty good.  Until last year when Hubby informed me that he really preferred real trees because he liked the smell.  I had not known this up to that point so we decided to get a real tree last year.  We went all out--drove an hour to a Christmas tree farm, played on the toys, cut the tree down ourselves, the whole shebang.  Only to get it home and realize that it had no smell to it whatsoever.  Nothing!  We spent $90 on that stupid thing, and that doesn't include the gas to and from. 

That is not the case this year!  I am sitting in front of our gorgeous tree and enjoying the smell of it permeating the entire house.  This thing is strong!  And I have to admit I'm loving it!  The best part?  We drove maybe 3 miles to pick it up and paid $40 for it.  And it is just as pretty, if not more, so than our tree last year! 

No decorations yet--we got home too late.  Tomorrow!

 I also have the rest of my Christmas decorations up.  Usually I don't have everything up this early.  In fact, I have a little light that you can count down how many days until Christmas and I didn't realize before today that it went above 25 days.  But since Baby Girls #1 and #2 are going to the grandparents next week I wanted to get everything up before they left so they could enjoy it for a little while.  And they enjoyed being able to help me set everything up.  And let's be honest, it is so much easier to get everything out without a 2 year old wanting to help. 

They're a little hard to see, but I love snowmen!  I have a lot of them, but I always want more!

I seriously love these Hallmark things that sing!  I only have two, mainly to help Hubby's sanity.

My attempt to keep the more breakable items out of reach of Baby Girl #4.  I'll let you know how that goes!

You can't see it, but these are right next to Hubby's homework table.  It's because he loves them sooooo much!

 That last picture is a singing village of Disney characters.  My grandparents put them up for so many years in their home at Christmas time.  My Grandpa took a lot of time to get them situated just right on their organ.  I remember as a kid just sitting and watching them for the longest time.  About 5 years ago when they were downsizing Grandma asked me if I wanted it.  I said yes, not really thinking at the time that I would use it that much.  But I've put it up every year and it makes me smile every time I see it because it makes me think of Grandpa and Grandma's house.  And I love to watch my girls sitting in front of it listening to the songs, just like I used to.  And I remember how big Grandma smiled when I told her how much my daughters loved it.  I like having a piece of her in my home like that.  

A family of 4

We are back from our trip for Thanksgiving.  We went up to one of my brothers' homes, which is about half way between us and my parent's place.  All my siblings except for one were there and only one sister-in-law wasn't able to come.  My parents were both there as well as my Grandpa.

I have actually been really looking forward to being together again.  I saw everyone at my Grandma's funeral, but I was ready for us to be together to have some fun.  But I was also dreading it a little bit, just because I thought it would be hard to see Grandpa there without Grandma.

But it was actually ok.  I thought about Grandma a lot, but didn't have a lot of time to spend missing her.  We ate a lot, played a lot of games, the girls got to ride the four wheelers, and just generally enjoyed being together.  We played 9 holes of Frisbee golf, and that was actually a lot of fun.  It was the first time I've ever played and I think we'll be doing it again! 

I, of course, forgot to take pictures.  I'm really bad about that.  So no pictures to show all the fun we had.  You'll have to take my word for it! 

My parents took Baby Girls #3 & 4 back home with them for two weeks.  #3 could have cared less.  She kept telling us, "See you in two weeks!"  I'm sure she'll be ready to come home, but she was so excited to be able to go to Grammy and Pappy's for a while without the older sisters.  #4 wasn't quite as sure about it, but I have no doubt that she'll love the time she spends there too.

It's only been about a day that we haven't had them, but I do miss them a little.  I'm not going to lie--the quiet and the fact that the older two are almost completely self-sufficient has been really nice.  Hubby and I are looking forward to getting to do some things with #1 and #2 that we normally couldn't with the younger girls.  But our family just isn't complete with only four of us.

We'll go back to my brother's house in two weeks and switch out the girls.  Then the older two get to go to the grandparents and we'll have the younger two here.  I'm not so sure I'm looking forward to going back to having just two little ones, but oh well.  It won't be forever!

In the meantime, the older girls are going to help me decorate for Christmas, we're going to go get a tree this weekend, going to a movie and Hubby and I are going on a date.  And that is just this week--we'll have to see what next week holds!

Through the Eyes of a Child

Today as we were driving to church we saw one of our neighbors walking.  Baby Girl #2 said, "Look, there's the nice lady walking!"  When she said that all the other girls knew who she was talking about.  The "nice lady" is a Muslim.  Full head covering and long sleeved, floor length dress.  I told Bryan I was glad that when they looked at her all they saw was someone who stopped to talk to them if they were outside and who asked them about themselves, not what she was wearing or what she might believe.  I love that at 10, 8 and 5 they are still innocent enough to take a person at face value, without having any prejudices, good or bad. 

Of course, that can also backfire.  Like the time we were in a store after living here less than three weeks and Baby Girl #2 loudly exclaims, "Mommy, we're the only white people in here."  Still spoken in complete innocence, but for some reason it didn't warm my heart quite as much as the nice lady comment!  :-S

Family Fun

Fridays and Saturdays are Hubby's days off.  After taking time off for the memorial service and camping and grandparents visit my plan was to go ahead and do school on Fridays.  My original plan was to take Fridays off for the entire year.  But because of the extra time off I decided we would bite the bullet and just have school on Fridays until January.  That lasted all of one week.  What kid wants to be doing school when their Daddy is sitting in the living room just waiting for them to come and play with him?  For that matter, what Mom wants to be doing school while Hubby is sitting in the living room doing nothing!  Not us! 

To be fair, if I really thought we had fallen that far behind we would be doing school on Friday.  But after reviewing Baby Girl #1's math and #2's math and english I decided we weren't as far behind as I thought.  In fact, we were a little bit ahead of schedule.

All this to explain that we had a family day on Friday.  Hubby assisted Baby Girl #2 in making blueberry muffins and bacon for breakfast.  She has been begging for about 2 months to be able to make breakfast so she was very happy to be able to get to do it.  I was very happy to be able to sleep in a little and wake up to my favorite breakfast!

After that we loaded everyone up and went to do a little shopping for Hubby.  He has gone for far too long with his slacks falling apart and being sewn quickly back together.  And his shoes that he wears with pretty much every suit were getting holes in the soles.  So I found a store that we having a sale, found a coupon and off we went.  It just so happens that I also found a $75 purse for $5.  Just sayin'!

After a little bit of shopping we surprised the girls with going to see Wreck-it Ralph.  Hubby and I both enjoy going to the movies and the girls love to go as well.  My sister had seen this movie and said it was really good so we decided to treat the girls.  We went to a matinee--lets be honest, our family of six can really only afford to go to matinees!  We found a theater that is a little older and more run down, but their ticket prices are cheaper as are their popcorn prices!  And the staff was pretty nice.  And we loved the movie!  We might actually buy it, and that is really saying something!

After that we came back home, had some dinner, watched another movie for family movie night and then packed the kiddos off to bed.

So what was so exciting about the day that is warranted a blog post?  Not much I guess, other than a note mentioning that we had a nice relaxing day as a family.  No schedules to keep, no running around madly trying to get every last thing done, no bad attitudes or hurt feelings. Just us together, enjoying being together.  I'm learning to count days like that as a reminder that God has given us all kinds of blessings that we normally take for granted.  Good health for all of us, the financial means to treat ourselves to a movie, a spouse that I still like to sit next to in a movie theater, even if we both have kids on our laps.  I hope I never take those kinds of days for granted!

Homemade Crackers--Are They Worth It?

I spent all of yesterday afternoon baking.  And by all afternoon I mean that I started when lunch was over and cleaned up, around one, and had to leave the last pan in the oven as we were walking out the door for church last night at 5:45. 

I wasn't planning on baking.  In fact, I was looking forward to an afternoon with not much to do.  But when we started getting lunch stuff out the girls informed me that there was no more bread in the house.  Which reminded me that I didn't buy much bread last time we were at the store because I had planned on making my own.  So I figured since we had no plans to go anywhere and I had nothing pressing to do, I would bake a couple loaves of bread.

However, once I started thinking about baking I remembered that I had two recipes that I wanted to try for home-made cheez-its and homemade goldfish.  The cheez-its I had already made and we all liked, even Hubby.  Again, I figured I had the time and the ingredients, let's get it all done at once.

I started with the bread.  I've made my own bread before, but I tried a new recipe that didn't involve having to let the dough rise twice before baking.  You make it and let it rise in the loaf pans for about 30 minutes and pop them in the oven.  I like this much better than the two-three hours it was taking with my other recipe.  After I get the dough in the loaf pan I realize that I also need dough for the pizza rolls I am making for dinner on Friday night.  I read somewhere that you can freeze this dough and use it the day of and it still works great.  I figured, why not?  Get it all done now and not have to worry about it on Friday.

Looks good right? And made with whole wheat flour!  Who gets Mother of the Year now?

 Then I get to work on the crackers.  Now, these don't necessarily take that much effort.  They are just time consuming because I have a tiny oven that only holds one baking pan at a time.  Seriously--why are there no homes with full sized ovens anymore?  I could have done 4 pans at once in a full size!  So all told with the crackers I have 10 pans that need to be baked. 

In the middle of this project I start to really question if this is worth my time or not.  I have one friend who I know would tell me that they make cheez-its in a box for a reason.  I have another who would applaud every effort I make to make everything we eat homemade.  I'm somewhere in the middle.  I'm a math person so I decided to figure out actual costs for these crackers.  Just for the cheez-its it ended up that if I were to make these twice a month I would save about $8. 

Part of the cheez-its.  They don't look all that appealing, but they're actually really good.

 My immediate reaction was that there was no way this was worth $8!  But then I remembered that $8 would buy a bag of chicken that would probably get us through two meals.  Or if we were having tacos, which we do about once a week, that $8 would cover the entire meal for us.  Once I realized that I felt pretty proud of myself and decided that the time spent was worth it. 

Until 4 little minions came through and devoured about half of the cheez-its in one snack time.  I'm not kidding--they ate almost half in one fail swoop.  The pride I had in myself quickly diminished into faint annoyance.

Now, I do have to admit, the goldfish (which taste nothing like goldfish, by the way) made a lot more and will last longer.  They also took FOREVER to get them all in and out of the oven.  The blog I read for this recipe actually had the Mom making her own little fish cookie cutter out of a soda can and punching out a million tiny fish.  There is no way!

Triangles are as fancy as I was willing to get!

So my final decision?  Bread is worth making.  The total cost per loaf is way less than a $1 and I know exactly what is in it.  And not really that time consuming.  Homemade crackers on the other hand?  I'm going with friend A and saying, "Those things come in a box for a reason!"

Princess Tea Party

We love princesses around here.  We have jammies, clothing, coloring books, toys, books, utensils and probably more covered with princesses.  The girls love playing princess, although for some reason lately they seem to be wanting to be the servant instead of the princess.  I haven't listened closely enough to understand why.

So this last Saturday we had a princess tea party at our house.  I won't take credit for the idea.  A friend from church who has three daughters herself came up with the idea.  We just happened to have it at our house. 

And because of that, the girls all learned an important lesson.  You may be a princess, but even princesses have to clean house before having guests over!  I told them all that they were just acting like Cinderella before her ball.  They did not appreciate my humor!  Although I do have to say that they all handled the work load pretty well and without complaining.

We started off reading a book about all girls being a Princess because their Father is the King.  Think Fancy Nancy with a God slant.  I thought it was a really cute book, and perfect for the evening.

Then we all had some snacks.  Yummy snacks too, I might add.  We did actually have tea in tea cups for all the girls.  There were enough Moms and Grandmas around to insure that no cups were dropped.  That was pretty much my biggest fear of the evening!

Then we moved on to a craft.  One of the dads had painstakingly cut out cardboard into the shape of an old-school phone receiver.  The girls got to be-dazzle these phones and take them home so they have a phone to talk to God on.  Once again, I thought it was an awesome idea.  And the girls all seemed to really enjoy it.  Some of the older girls thought they were really cool and decorated both sides of their phone.  The end result was really nice. 

That's Baby Girl #4 in the front and Baby Girl #3 just to the left of her

The older girls got a separate table.  I think it was better for their sanity that way!

 Of course, no princess party would be complete without a couple of princes in the house.  Hubby and another dad hung out with each other for the evening, trying to stay as far away from the glitter as possible!

It takes a special kind of Dad to show up to a Princess Tea Party!

 All in all, I think everyone who came had a great time.  My girls sure did.  And it gave my girls a chance to become closer to some friends from church which I was glad for!  We're already talking about the next time we can all get together.  I think it is such a blessing to be able to enjoy being with your church family.  I'm glad we have that here!

All God's beautiful princesses

I have a confession...

I had a little bit of a snit yesterday afternoon.  And evening.  Yep, I'm 30 and still getting into snits.  *Sigh* One day maybe I won't anymore.

See it all started when I sat down at the beginning of the week and realized that we were getting paid on Wednesday and I would be able to go grocery shopping on Thursday.  So I spent several hours going through all the new recipes I had found on Pinterest and got very excited about being able to make all these new dishes and try out the new crock pot that I've only been able to use once.  It was all very exciting!  What can I say, new recipes are fun!  And I was excited to try making my own cheez-it like crackers and home made pretzels...I had a very long list y'all!

So I spent a couple hours printing off all the new recipes and putting them in page protectors and getting them in my nifty new recipe binder.  I worked through a menu plan for the next two weeks, figuring out what meal would work best on which day and how to spread it out so we didn't have chicken for four days in a row.  I also had to figure out what to make for our family night tomorrow night and a princess tea party we're having at our house on Saturday with a bunch of other little girls. 

Then yesterday I actually wrote out the grocery list.  It took a while.  I had all new recipes to get ingredients off of and I was make the list for two weeks worth.  I didn't want to have to go back to the store except for fresh stuff.  I noticed the list was pretty long.  So I decided to go through and estimate what everything was going to cost.  I was over budget.  Way over budget.  Like $150 over budget.  Ridiculous!  So I'm looking at this list that I just spent hours making, a menu that wasn't going to work and all the work I had done printing out recipes that I now couldn't use.  And I got upset. 

A little bit of it was disappointment that  I wouldn't be able to try out all these new recipes.  Some of it was irritation that we're not wealthy enough for me to not have to worry about a grocery budget.  Most of it was pure frustration that I had just wasted several hours of my life for absolutely nothing.  Hubby tried to help by suggesting that I just take out a few meals and replace them with things that wouldn't cost as much.  I tried that on a couple of meals, but that didn't help the overall cost all that much.  Then hubby tried talking a little more firmly with me suggesting that my attitude probably wasn't what it was supposed to be.  Yeah, I took that real well!

So like I said, I had a real nice snit going on. 

This morning hubby woke me up with the information that he had some extra grocery money for me.  Enough to cover everything I really wanted to do with the extra stuff cut out.  I don't know where in our budget he got the extra from.  I don't want to know. I do owe him an apology.  Although, in my defense I had already decided to apologize before I got the extra grocery money.  And maybe next time I'll learn to just add in a few new recipes instead of 13 new ones.  And even better yet, maybe next time I'll remember that I should be thankful for the grocery money we do have instead of pouting like a child. 

So I'm not perfect--God is still working on me daily.  Thank goodness He won't ever give up on me!