"Happy Winds-day."

It's a rather blustery day......today

Things Only A Mom Would Do

Having been a mother for 16+ years, I have done and said a lot of weird things. Things I never could of imagined doing before I became a mother, like smelling my kids' butts when they were babies to see if they pooped. I mean Who Does That?!

Only A Mother Would ~

*Pick her child's boogers.
*Take a drink with their child's "floaties" in it.
*Chew their children's already chewed gum.
*Clean up puke and then sit down and eat dinner.
*Talk about poop (consistency, color, smell) all while eating a meal.
*Cross her legs when she sneezes, coughs, or laughs. (Come on you know what I mean!!!)
*Smell nasty bottles or sippy cups to see just how old they are.
*Debate whether their kids poopy underpants is just nasty enough to throw away or try to save.
*Stick their fingers in their kids diapers to check for poop.
*Lick their thumbs and wipe food or dirt off their kids faces.
*Spit in their hands to smooth down their child's cowlicks.
*Ooooh and Aaaah over every little scribble.
*Sing silly songs in public restrooms to get their child to go potty.
*Walk straight into the men's restrooms, without a second thought, so their little boys can pee in the urinal - cause the kid thinks it's a cool, big boy thing to do.
*Say "Don't lick the dog....your sister....your brother!".
*Catch vomit in her hands.
*Memorize all the words to their child's favorite cartoon theme song.
*Enjoy listening to their children's favorite songs, even when their child isn't in the room.
*Make up stories about what may of happened to their child's favorite hamster (who probably ended up as cat food).
*Think nothing of spending hours in the car, taking their children to their activities.
*Think nothing of "saying a few words" about the pet fish they have to flush.
*Drive 3 hours round trip, out of the way, to retrieve a "lovey" that was left behind.
*Say "We pee in the potty, not in the toy box."
*Say "Don't brush the dog's teeth with your brother's toothbrush!".
*Count out the exact number of each m&ms, chicken nuggets, fries, etc. just so you don't have to listen to your kids fight over who got more of what.
*Let her kids spit out gum or candy in her hands when their kid decides they don't like it.

Feel free to add your own to the list......

The Gingerbread Cookies that took Three Trips to the Store to Make

Hey, at least they had fun decorating the all time consuming cookies....I admit it, it was fun for me to do too! And they tasted pretty darn delicious (if I do say so myself).

Jokes By Nicholas (age 8)

What do you get when you cross a vampire and a snowman?

Frostbite

Why did the snowman go to the doctor's?

Because he had a brain freeze

Crap That Annoys Me

This past year Sarah turned 12. I'm not sure if you have ever had to deal with a 12 year old preteen, premenstrual girl or not, but if you have I'm sure you can sympathize with me. Every little thing turns into an argument with her. I could say the sky was blue and she would blow up at me and then accuse me of not believing her. That's her big thing, she "thinks" I don't believe her when she says things. When that has nothing to do with the situation at all. She just screams and whines and throws hissy fits over everything. It drives me nuts!

So tonight, Amanda and I were rolling out cookie dough, when Sarah from another room interjects our conversation (that had nothing to do with Sarah what so ever) and starts screaming about how I never believe her and blah blah blah. And so I said out loud to Amanda "You used to act like that too." Then Amanda said "I'm sorry" I said you still do sometimes, but it annoyed the crap out of me endlessly. To which she replied "I'm really sorry!" Of course we laughed about it, but seriously teenage hormones SUCK! And girl teenage hormones are the worst! Thank the good Lord above I only have two girls to go through this with and not the opposite (4 girls, 2 boys). No wonder my grandfather had a den that he locked himself in and a workshop that he could also hide in - seeing as he was the father of five daughters.

I need a hiding place too......

A Super Fun and Easy Christmas Project

Nathan and I did this project this morning. He had a lot of fun, but then I think it's because he ate more candy than he glued on his gingerbread boy LOL! When I'm complaining later about how hyper he is, I'll have no one to blame, but myself :D



It was super easy to make and anyone can do it. Just take a paper grocery sack (we used a sheet of brown butcher paper). Cut out a gingerbread boy shape (I traced Nathan and then cut it out, because our paper was so big). Then start gluing on the candy.


Some ideas for the candy are gumdrops, peppermints, twizzlers, skittles, starbursts....you can use just about any kind of candy you want as long as the glue will stick to it. All I used was Elmer's school glue, but you could probably use a glue gun, if you wanted to.






Nathan loved doing this project. It was super easy and a lot of fun to do.

O Christmas Tree

I Can Say I Knew Them When.....

On Sunday night (there wasn't any school on Monday, of course), Anthony invited a couple of friends to sleep over. And let me tell you there wasn't any sleeping going on with them, they were up when the roosters were crowing. I went to bed, Rich went to bed, the boys - not so much. They played Rock Band and video games All_Night_Long. I think they all had fun and that's what counts. I hope they want to do it again sometime, because to tell the truth...I had fun too.

I know I complained about one of Anthony's friends being here all the time in an earlier post. But then, Rich told me that without his friends growing up, he wouldn't have had anything to do. He was constantly hanging out with them and it made me appreciate the fact that Anthony has made good choices in his friends. And I'm glad that we can provide a nice, fun, safe place for them to chill out. I kinda like having the "hang out" house. Does that make me the cool mom? Please say yes - LOL!

Justin and Anthony trying to fix one of the guitars
Vincent playing a solo
Justin rocking on the guitar
Amanda the drummer girl
All of them jamming (Anthony was singing - very badly - I might add LOL) - Do the cool moms still say jamming???
Nicholas doing a handstand, trying to be cool too
Nathan enjoying the "Rock Concert"

Large Family Christmas Song

I saw this posted on The Homemaking Cottage website and being a mother of six, I of course, thought this was hilarious and had to post it here as well. Rich and I have heard every single one of these questions through the years. Enjoy!!



And we wouldn't have it any other way either!

Turn Around's Fair Play

Did I ever tell you about the time I locked my keys in the van with the twins inside (they were toddlers at the time)? Um, no...didn't think so, allow me to explain.

Rich used to always lock his keys in his car. It was done to the point of annoyance for me. One time he did this, he had taken my van, but out of habit he took his car keys with him too. When he locked himself out of the van, I couldn't just hop in the car to help him, because he had the keys to the other car too. The solution was to carry two car seats, push a stroller and manager two preschoolers and walk to my mother's office (a couple of blocks away) and borrow her car. Let me tell you how mad I was when I got there and he had managed to get in by jimmying the lock. Are you beginning to see how annoying this was?

I have only locked the keys in the car once and it was the worst experience...EVER. I will never, ever tease or get mad at Rich again for locking his keys in the car.

It all began after I dropped Amanda and Anthony off at school. Sarah and Zachary were about 2 years old at the time. I needed to drop my article off at the newspaper office (at the time I was working as a freelance writer for a local newspaper). I drove the half hour to town and when I got to the office, there weren't any parking spaces in front, so I drove around the block a few times. Finally, I decided to park a block away and just walk with the twins.

Then, I did something I had never done before......I have no idea - to this day why I did this, and I have never done it since. After I turned the car off, I put the keys on the floor behind the driver's seat in the van. Why??? I don't know. I got out the van, hit the automatic lock thing and shut the door.

As soon as I did this, I realized what I had done. Shock....Horror...Fear...I just locked the twins, buckled in car seats and my keys in the van and had no way of getting them out. Luckily, it was a nice day. Not too hot, not too cold. All this of course happened, before I had a cell phone.

Panicking, I looked up and down the street, spotted a telephone booth less then half a block away and within eye shot of the van. I ran to it, only to see that it was broken. I ran into this little mom and pop store across the street from the phone booth. I asked to use the phone. I tried calling Rich (which was a long shot, because he was working midnight shift at the time, so he was sound asleep) without luck. I tried calling my mother, my brother, anyone I could think of, but no one was home. So I ran back to the van. The twins were talking back and forth to each other, smiling and happy. I felt scared and frustrated. I had no idea what I was going to do at that point. Standing there feeling helpless is a feeling I hope I never have again.

Finally a good Samaritan pulled up behind me. As he was walking down the street, I asked him if he had a phone I could use (I was going to try calling my family one more time). He said he didn't have one, but there was a gas station down the street that also had a garage that did towing. He told me he would drive over and ask them for help.

About ten minutes later, he came back with a tow truck. The man from the garage managed to unlock my car and then proceeded to tell me that there would be a $25 charge. As if locking my kids and keys in the car wasn't shock enough, now I had to pay a fee for getting them out. Having no money, or credit card on me, I had to beg the guy to trust me, gave him my name and phone number. When that didn't work, I gave him my driver's license to hold until I could come back and pay. I was in tears at this point. I was humiliated, frightened, shocked. I didn't know what else to do.

After getting home and waking up Rich and explaining the whole situation, we went back to pay and get my license back. When I walked into that garage, I felt like I was on display. There were 4 men standing around staring at me and at my license, which was hanging up on a bulletin board. The whole thing was just so embarrassing. I swore I would never again say one word about Rich locking his keys in his car....ever again!