How Things are Going

It's so wonderful to not have any toys :) It takes the boys a whole 15 minutes to pick up Genesis's toys and any dirty clothes/trash that's on the floor. And then we have plenty of time to read Bible stories and The Hobbit. Just lovely. Maybe it will last, even after they have toys again? Maybe.

What else? Oh! I finished my Mei Tai! I decided not to put a pocket on it, which for some reason has DH distressed. Apperently he was really looking forward to having one with a pocket? Like everything he sewed he gushed about how wonderful it was and how I should sell them. And this is right after he makes fun of my never straight seams. I always tell him that if I were to pay somethign to make something for me, and they gave it to me with this poor of quality, I would not be happy. Why would I expect any less from others? But I am happy with how it turned out and I know the more I sew the better I'll get.

I am so proud of myself. YOu ever have those weeks where everythign just goes smootly and you get all your chores done and all that? I've had one of those weeks. Last week I really dropped the ball and got hardly anything done, so I've really stepped up this week and done really well. Actually I do pretty good most weeks, but after having such an unmotivated week it was nice.

I was just sitting here thinking about tomorrow's bfast. We're having rice pudding. Want to know a secret? I've never in my life had rice pudding. Never. And while I'm sharing. This past Monday was the first time I've ever had cornmeal mush. Why the sudden desire to try new things? DH asked after we moved in that I start making bfast every morning. His grandma always made bfast so he had gotten used to it in the many months he lived with her. He wanted bacon, eggs and toast so we did that for a while, but it got expensive, so I started only cooking it every other day with other things on the off days. And now DH is complaining that he's tired of bacon and eggs all the time, so I'm looking for even more cheap things for bfast. I hate having ot decide in the morning what to cook (actually I hate having to decide what to cook for any meal or snack, thank God for menus!) so last week I set up a new bfast menu. Sunday is eggs, bacon and cinnamon rolls (which I keep intending to start making my own, but for now we use Pillsbury), Monday is cornmeal mush, Tuesday is french toast, Wed is bacon, eggs, toast, Thurs is baked oatmeal with fruit, Friday rice pudding, and Sat is super sugary, artificially flavored/colored cereal, b/c it's easy and I love it :) Only the rice pudding and cornmeal mush are new. So far this week everybody has loved everything. Every morning the kids wake up and ask what's for bfast and when I tell them, they cheer. Yay for Mommy! Let's hope the rice pudding goes over well too!

A solution to the toy torture? plus a few other things

Last night DH got home from work and heard, yet again, how horribly pick-up time went and immediatly went into action. He gathered up all their toys, all their books, all their craft stuff, all their costumes, all their everything, and put it all in the extra bedroom, never to be seen again. Well, at least not for a long while. He's seen how how horribly pick-up time goes, he understood perfectly when I tried my newest idea and he too had had enough when I told him they just don't care. So for at least a week, they have no toys or anything. Genesis does have a few, b/c it's not fair to her to not have any toys b/c the boys aren't doing their job, but the boys can't touch them. They will slowly be able to earn a few toys back. DH also decided that we're goign to go through and get rid of a lot of their toys. This is HUGE. I've been telling him for years that they have too many toys, but he never lets me get rid of anything. He usually just keeps bringing home more junk. But he's finally realized that they really do have too much and they obviously don't respect and appreciate what they do have, so we're goign to get rid of at least half. Yay!! I love my hubby. Sometimes it takes him a while, but he eventually gets the point. In fact, as he was telling the kids this morning what's goign to happen, he said somethign about needing to go through all his stuff too b/c he holds on to way more than he needs! We're actually goign to get rid of stuff!! So yay for decluttering!

I think Genesis is teething. She's been major cranky the last few days and keeps wanting to nurse. She hasn't gotten any new teeth in a long time though, so I suppose it's too be expected. She only has 6 teeth after all. She's sleeping for the moment, let's hope it stays that way!

One of my message boards is doing Mei-tai sew-along that I've joined in on. I have one mei-tai I got when Canaan was itty-bitty and just love it. I've been meaning to make another for ever now and with this sew-along I'm actually doing it! So far things are looking really good. DH was even impressed. So far I have all four straps done and the body is pinned together. I'm thinking about putting a pocketon it though, so I need to check out the directions on that before I go any farther. I'm really excited about though. I'd post pics, but my internet is too slow to get anything uploaded, I've tried a million times.

The Toy Torture

I am about ready to go completely insane. I absolutly HATE the end of the day when it's time to pick up toys. I mean HATE. Ever since Asher was probably about 2 we've picked up toys almost every single night before bed. You would think we had this figured out by now, but we don't. Every single night it's torture. I do nothing but nag, nag, nag the entire hour it takes us. I am completely out of ideas on how to fix this. I've tried standing over them the entire time which just ends up in a whole lot of discipline with no better results. I've tried having them pick up several times a day so the mess isn't so big. That just results in having to nag, nag, nag several times a day instead of just once! A few weeks ago I got a new idea where I would just set the timer and when the timer goes off any toys that are still on the floor become mine. Now I just have a huge pile of toys in my room! I DO help them, but the only difference between me helping and not helping is that *I* end up doing all the work! I'm thisclose to just getting rid of all their toys. They obviously don't care about them and to be honest, I don't think they would really even notice. They'd still keep plenty busy. I don't want to have a "can't get a new toy out until you put the other away" kind of rule for multiple reasons. For one, sometimes you just need more toys to do what you want. YOu want to build a ramp with your blocks for your cars to go down. Or have your dinosaurs attack the Lincoln Log cabin. Or have the stuffed bear serve the pretend food dinner. I don't want to stifle them by limiting the number of toys they can play with at one time. I want them to be able to seamlessly move from one activity to the next, when they think of it without having to worry. I really don't mind not being able to walk through the living room throughout the day, I just hate the torture of getting it all picked up at the end of the day! I just don't know what to do about it anymore but I'm so tired of the fight every single night.

In the Name of the King

So DH and I had a wonderful day out. We went out to eat (at Arby's, lol) then went to see In the Name of the King at the dollar theaters, well, $3 theater to be more precise. The movie was only ok. If it had been a made for TV movie I wouldn't have cared, but I don't think it was theater quality. After that we went to Walmart and picked up a few things for our Super Bowl party next Sunday. The kids had a great time with their Aunt and cousins. But DH is calling for me to watch a movie with him, so I guess that's it for now!

Just catching up!

Let's see, haven't blogged in loooong time. I keep meaning to, and then I loose my connection and decide to just go to bed instead, lol.

We did get that room cleaned out before my dad got here. It looks great. Funny thing happened though. We got it all cleaned out, moved tubs upon tubs of baby/kid clothes to the barn, moved box upon box into assorted closets, etc. Then I went to bed that night and realized "Omgosh, look at all that wasted space. A whole room, just sitting there empty, unused!" Well, I couldn't have that. After all, we're a family of 5 living in a single wide trailer, wasted space is a tragedy! So we did some rearranging, moved all the tubs of clothes back into that room, stacking them on the trunk that is now full of blankets/sheets and on top of one dresser. The tall dresser that is closest to the door got turned into a shoe/hat/glove dresser, moving all that stuff out of the small thing of shelves that were crowding the hallway. We moved the shelf to the living room to better organize the toys that are in there. Then the other dresser we filled up with games, books and hardly used craft items. We also had two milk crates storing shoes and such in the hallway and moved them to an end table in the living room. One sits on it's side and has some books in it, the other sit on top, right-side up and is filled with craft items that are used regularly. My house is far from house beautiful, between the milk crates, hand-me-down furniture, duck-taped sewing desk and the shoe boxes I use to organize toys, but when it's all picked up it still looks nice and fits mine and dh's personality. Oh, and after my dad left, we moved all the big stuffed animals that were cluttering up the boys room onto the bed in the extra bedroom. I'm very happy with how things turned out :)

As for my dad's visit, it went great! My dad had once said that if I moved here he would never come visit b/c he had no desire to see my husband. I can't say I blame him, but it still hurt, so I was very happy when he decided to come visit. I know part of it was just to check in on us, but that's ok. Not only that, but him and DH got along wonderfully! DH was very worried that my dad would make him miserable. I can quote DH as saying "your dad is the only person I worry about hating me" He knows other ppl that matter to him, like his family will never hate him, and other ppl who matter in my family, like my mom, will put their own feelings aside when visiting, but my dad. He has the potential to hate and make it known. So we were both very relieved and happy when my dad treated DH just like he always had. So we all had a good time. My dad took the kids and I to a movie, we saw "B movie" at the cheap theaters, but missed a good chunk of the beginning and it was pretty short anyways. Seemed alright though. Then we went to Wal-mart and my dad bought a whole bunch of movies for us. And then we went to a book store and he bought The Hobbit and Lord of the Ring books, b/c I mentioned we were needing new chapter books to read outloud. Then the next day he took me grocery shopping, since we're still vehicle-less. And he insisted on paying for all our non-food items (food items are covered by our wonderful gov't since we live "below poverty") All in all, it was good visit. We discussed future visits. He know has children that live all over the country so visits are spread out. But I think since we live closest, at just under 5 hours from him, he may come visit us on the occasionaly long weekend, and visit the others on Holidays. He talked about checking out the schedule for the Nascar track that is not too far from here, so we'll see about that.

Oh, speaking of money and such up there about groceries, I just remembered, DH got a raise! It wasn't much, but it will help us greatly, and he'll be getting more hours, which will help even more! We were joking about how rich we felt when he got his paycheck, but in reality, it was still below poverty (to give you an idea of how little he makes!). We should be able to get caught up on our bills in just a few weeks and then we may even have some extra to save up for a car. Woohoo!

And speaking of spending money and a car, DH's sister called a few days ago and offered to watch the kids and let us borrow her car tomorrow so we can go on a date! She's even throwing in $20! I think we're goign to go to the $2 theater and then Arbys. So romantic, huh? Of course, just to make things fun, af showed on Thurs (the beginning of my second cycle since DD was born) and is super heavy. Isn't that what everyone wants to worry about when out of a very rare date with their dh. But the good news is that my cycles aren't too wacky, the first cycle was 6-7wks, which is normal for me, which an 11 day luteal phase, which isn't too awfully short and should be up to 12days, my normal, before long. That should put us at a good spot for getting pg in March again, since that seems to be when I concieve. I'm getting excited about being pg again. I'll probably start stressing about it if it gets into April and I haven't gotten pg yet, but for now I'm content waiting until March, lol.

Somehow asked how school was going and basically, it's not. I decided to give Asher a looooong break for now. He's just refusing to do all things with letters and gets frustrated at numbers even, so occasionally we look at the calendar and talk about what day it is, etc, and me reading outloud twice a day, but that's it. After we get a car and have access to the library we'll probably start doing My Father's World. I think going back to teh basics with letters and sounds will really build his confidence and I love the way they introduce numbers and ones/tens, a concept I have not been able to get across. In the meantime, I've just preparing myself, going over stuff again and again until I have it all figured out and making lists of things we need, etc. I really think we'll enjoy MFW once we get started.

I think that's about it, as if that post wasn't long enough! I'm goign to try and remember to blog more often, really I am, Maybe I need to move the link up on my Favorites list...