Using Your Blog as a Journal?

Ok, so I have heard a bunch of people talk about using their blog as a journal.

Personlly too many people read my blog for me to be able to be completely open in it, but it is definately better than nothing :) I have thought about the fact that a blog is NOT a hard copy though. Recently I came acrossed this idea and thought I would share it! This website will make your blog into a book.

It reminds me of Heritage Makers. But I don't know if Heritage Makers does this or not. Anyhow, I think it's good way to get hard copies of your blog for when technology changes ...yet again, and when your kids and grandkids want to see what you were up to "back in the day".

Bookaholic

Yeah, I read. A lot.

I could easily go through four or five good sized books in three weeks time when I'm "Binging". I really like books... no I love books. They are the escape that allows you to stop mid sentence if you need to cuddle a little kid, or change a diaper.

I have an issue though. I have a weird aversion to the library. That's right. I love books, dread the library.

Could it be that if I were to go to the library every time I wanted a book I would have to drag all of my kidlets with me? I don't think I would mind so much if this were not that case.

I know, selfish. Kids should be taught to love the library ...right? Sure, I agree with that. In Principal. In practice... yeah, not so much.

Maybe it's the garden area that is right in your face as you walk in... that looks so enticing to play in. Maybe it's the fish pond that they aren't supposed to touch that is right at the best level to dangle little fingers in. Or could it be the HUGE ramp that they just want to run on! Up. Down. up. down. Up. Down. UP DOWN ... WEEEEE!! and you know with that much fun there is NO WAY they are going to be library quiet. Heck, there's almost no way I could be library quiet! Not with trying to draw their attention to actual books. Heaven FORBID! Books! HA. Riiiight.

Mom, why would I want to read a book when I can walk along this retaining wall as fast as I can teetering on the edge, just asking the fish pond to swallow me up!? What? You just asked my sibling in a very stern tone for the umpteenth time to stop doing this exact thing? Why are you upset mom? WHAT? We are going HOME??? BUT WHY!!!???? NOOOOOOOO....

Ugh. Yeah, at this point Barnes and Noble is a blessing... even with the cost and the temptation of running around the shelves like it's a racetrack.

If I go to the library all the sanity I gain by reading books is INSTANTLY lost through the tactics of the 3 beings I call my chillins. They plan it in advance I tell you! Those sneaky little short people don't get enough credit for their strategic skills!

Any suggestions?

Oooooo... Post 200!

Does that tell you how much of a blogaholic I am?

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Anywho...

Today Goobers Preschool went to the zoo. Myself and Missy got to go with them for the last day. Yay. It was fun, besides the fact that it rained while we were there. But I'm glad it wasn't the torrential downpour we had the other day!

T-Ball

So today was the first practice of T-ball! Goober seamed to have fun though I think that all he really wanted to do was run after the ball :) Arin did a wonderful job in getting the kids to understand what was supposed to be going on, better than I ever could have done! Good Job Arin!!!

Here are the pictures I got of the practice.

Goober at first base

Lots of parents helping to direct the kids to the right places.

Run Run Run!!!

Goober running home (after much directing!)

Missy My watching the game... at one point her and four other "younger siblings" were all sitting and playing with each other. It was so cute. I was going to get a picture, but then Li decided to eat grass or something and I missed it!

Ben was such a good sport. He even helped the kids to know how to stand to hit the ball right!

Goober hitting the ball!

Ben helping Dylan know what to do.

Ila and Garrison waiting to catch the ball.

Dylan running to first base.

Ila running to first base. Check out the tongue! lol

Goober standing at third base.... I told him to smile and he just looked at me like I was nuts.

Running Home!

"Couch" talking with the kids.

"This is fun!!!"

YAY TREATS!

Rain, Rain .... go away?

Wow, I think this is the rainiest spring I can remember! Anyone else agree? I don't mind so much, except I need to mow my lawn and it's getting REALLY long and it keeps raining every time we get ready to cut the darned stuff!!!

HORRAY!

Yippy! Today Our whole family made it ALL THE WAY THROUGH CHURCH!!! YAY! No potty accidents, no uber crying crankiness, and no freak outs! Though I struggled through the first meeting, after that the other meetings went ok. So I count that as a VERY successful Sunday!

Kidlets

Today has been nice... we've been able to launge around a little due to the fact that we always have Monday to mow the lawn etc. :) I was trying to get some good pictures and ended up with these crazy pictures of Missy and G. I think I may change his nickname on here to Goober :)

Then I got this cute one of Li and Jer! :)

G's Preschool Program

So this morning was Big G's preschool program due to the prediction of rain Mrs. Dance swapped his program day for his zoo day. It was actually really sunny during the whole thing! LOL hope on next Wednesday it's sunny for the zoo day.

Anywho, G did really well with the program, I was a little afraid that as soon as he saw the video camera he would run over to me and try to see himself in the video like he always does at home. But he did great and stayed where he was supposed to and even sang most of the songs :)

This is a picture of him and his teacher Mrs. Dance.

Lame-O

OK, so I just got home after swapping FHE packets. I looked at my packets and thought.... Lame-O! Not that the master copy was lame. Thank you Tandee for letting me mooch off of your FHE packets stuff! But the fact is, each of these women do an AWESOME job making these things look like they are professionally done! And here I am with my scissors and my crayons thinking "these colors are good". Yeah, those women WAY outdo me! Way to go ladies!!!

Next time I'm NOT going to procrastinate.... Hopefully!

The Girl(s) Next Door!

OK, so Tandee's girls are way cute, and I got a couple of cute pictures of them while I watched Taylor and Emmrie today. I thought this was probably the best way to get those pictures to her if she wanted them.

Chores.

OK, so this topic has been brought up on a couple of posts (e.g. Rocks in My Dryer see link in "Places I Like to Check Out" on left side of page if you want) and I thought I might chime in.

Chores at our house are simple. Seeing that my oldest is just about to turn five on June 1st and I'm not that great at getting small change from the bank on a regular basis for allowance, I have devised a simple system at out house for chores and rewards.

Tokens. That's right, Tokens. Or should I say Poker Chips? LOL Lets put those babies to good use!

Anyhow, the kids get paid in poker chips. I know they are not able to "spend" these anywhere outside the house, but seeing that we don't go out of the house very often I figure that isn't a huge deal at the moment.

So here's how it works. If Big G brushes his teeth in the morning he gets 1 token. If he makes his bed he gets another. If he keeps his bed dry all night he gets 3 tokens.... As he gathers his tokens he spends them at the "store" I have a list on the fridge with pictures of things he can "buy". Popcorn = 2 tokens. Trip to the park = 5 tokens. Blast Off (a fun kids place) = 7 tokens. Etc etc.

As G and Missy My get to the point that they do their chores and no longer ask for tokens for that chore I switch out the chore list. For instance, recently G stopped asking for tokens for getting dressed in the morning. So, I stopped giving him tokens for that and add a new chore to the list. Like setting the table for dinner. I don't have any more than five chores listed at one time. And if the kids decide there is something they want that I'm not oh so eager to give them on a constant basis... yup, I put it on the reward chart so they can earn it :)

Missy My is 3!!!

So in celebration tonight we went to bowl-ero and had a family birthday party for her. I haven't been bowling since high school and boy did it show! I came in DEAD LAST (out of the adults of course! the kids got bumpers and a cool ramp thing to help them aim and get their ball going).

Popcorn Popping!

This is how I pictured the tree in the song "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree!" and I have one in my front yard!

Technically this is a plum tree though :)

Too Bad He Can't Start a Mini Refinery Too!

This story tells of a man who is fed up with oil prices, I think his idea is great. I just wish the government would remove some red tape so that we could build another refinery.

Wow, I think I'm in for a Doozy!

Ok, so I think I'm starting to get an idea of what I'm in for :)

This week is G's last week of preschool. That means Monday is Summer Birthdays Day (in which I need to find something to send for the other kids in the class) and another day is Zoo Day (in which I need to go and am actually looking forward to) and the last day of preschool is the "Program" (I have to admit I'm excited about that one!) .

Also this week I need to get FHE packets done.... ha ha ha... crossing fingers. I thought I had a good start on it... then the procrastinating began! lol

And on Wednesday my parents come home from China. This entails going and dropping their car off at the airport so that when they get home on a late flight they don't have to call me to pick them up... and hopefully I will have time to go get them some milk, bread and lunch meat so that they have something to eat once they wake up after MAJOR jet lag.

Soooo, I have no clue if I will have time to blog... we will see if I get time to SHOWER!! But somehow I will get it all done and feel really good about it... cause actually, I prefer a busy week to a week of laundry and nothingness :)

TMNT.... the old one.

OK, so today Jer took the kids for 3 hours. All three of them... not just at home, out. GO JER!! :)

Anywho, while he was out with the kidlets he bought the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for G. Can we say TIME WARP. Holy crap have you seen the special effects? How did we actually think that was good.... EVER. The "hot babe" reminds me of my sisters styles when they were in high school, and the Shedder totally reminds me of a Darth Vader wanna be! And I'm sorry but the "tough guys" in that movie are just lame.

I couldn't watch it, I had to leave. It was wounding my soul! Oh the terror... please, oh please don't let this be G's next favorite movie... have MERCY!

Holy Unbaby Proofed House Batman!!

OK, so honestly I was hoping it wouldn't get to this...



I was HOPING that our house would sell before I was forced to baby proof everything. It HAS been for sale since last November... of course the fact that are first realtor did diddly squat doesn't help.

Anywho, What would you do? If I put a baby gate at the top of the stairs again I have to drill holes up there... again... after I repaired the holes and damage from the last time we had a baby gate there... and when people come to look at the house it would be a serious obstacle!

As far as the CD's go... apparently I have an easy fix for that one... it's called shutting the office door. Unfortunately that would entail me staying out of the office too, to monitor how much my chillins injure themselves and their siblings. Mmmm.

Little Li Crawls

OK, so I tried REALLY hard to catch it on camera. He was a bit evasive. He will crawl a short distance and then flop on his tummy cause he gets too impatient and wants to get there faster... and resorts back to the army crawl :)

I had to tempt him with the camcorders lens cap to get him to crawl even this little bit while I caught it on film.

Wedding Gifts that Give and Give and Give.

OK, I've been married coming up on seven years now. Still going strong thank you and very much in love. However the other day I was looking at a friends blog and realized she has the same cake stand as I. OK, so it's not the most unique cake stand in the world, I'll give you that... But I'm always a little surprised when I find someone with the same items I own. I don't know why... it's not like Wal-Mart is that uncommon of a place to buy things!

This particular cake stand we got for our wedding. As one of 4 other cake stands that we received it was the most versatile, so we kept it and took the others back. We also received multiples of other things as well. But the towels.... holy crap the towels. We got GAZILLIONS OF THOSE. In fact, we are just now (after 7 years mind you) starting to really use the last set. We didn't even wear out the others yet! Though one set is getting really close.

Some were tacky and I would never use, so we either sent them to D.I. or use them to dry cars after washing them (which isn't often). lol Towels are good mind you. Some say you can never have too many. They are pricey and come in handy for many many things. The thing I find most odd? A lot of them are the same color (green), but not the color that we picked on our wedding registry (blue). In fact, I don't even know why we registered we got some really random stuff!

Curtains. An atrocious cookie jar (with a creepy stuffed grandma on the top... seriously? this thing would have scared ME away from the cookies... and I'm not easily dissuaded from such things!) A florescent orange hot pad... and more.

What was the most atrocious thing that you got? And what did you get bazillions of?

Oh if I had known...

That this "kitty" would be so loved... I may have run out and bought another so I could wash it without causing emotional trauma for Missy My!

This Kitty used to be cute. It used to be fluffy. It Used to be soft. It used to have a fluffy purple collar sewn onto it. It used to be unstained.

It is ratty and worn, it has stains that nothing will take out, and that purple fluffy collar? Long gone, it got so worn it started to get scratchy so I took it off (boy was she mad) and replaced it with a bit of soft purple rope. I will be surprised if "kitty"s tail stays attached much longer due to the fact that quite often this is the part that Missy flips her around by.

To me, the "kitty" is kinda ugly now...

But to her, "kitty" is LOVED. Which in her eyes is so much better!

THEY ARE ALIVE!!!!!

ROFL .. ok so technically I never thought they were dead...I was just really worried about them :) I just heard from my parents. They are fine but have been without internet till recently. Now, why they didn't call I have no clue :) They did say that they felt the earthquake but had no clue how big it was!

Anyhow... back to life as it was :)

Anonymous Comment Day!

OK, so I'm always surprised to hear who has been lurking on my blog :) Do you lurk on blogs? If so, is the reason that you don't comment because A) you have nothing to add, B) you are shy, or C) you are paranoid that some crazy psychopath will hunt you down and do unspeakable things to your family cat?

I'm using this as ACD cause I figure if your answer is C that the anonymous part will make you a little less paranoid :)

While I'm Waiting...

Be forwarned this is a frustrated/complaining post. If you don't want to read it I won't be offended!

Some of you may have noticed. Those of you that attend church with us anyways... that Jer and I are struggling to come on a consistant basis.

We may make excuses when asked directly why we weren't there ...

Caring friend:"Why weren't you at church last week?"

Myself: "Well, you see, it was the last time my kids
would get to see my parents for a couple of weeks due to them going to China and
there was no other time to go to see them except during church. And I know my kids would have been really mad if they didn't see them before
they left on their trip."

While this is technically true, I think that had we truly wanted to go to church, we would have been there.

Don't get me wrong... I believe all that is being taught. In fact, I team teach the five year olds.

The thing is, I have this almost entirely selfish attitude I'm struggling with. It has to do with the fact that that:
.
G tends to have issues going to his own class when I sit right behind him in the opening excersises and he spends almost the whole time looking at me or trying to get my attention.
.
That Missy My still has potty accidents as far as #2 goes (She has #1 down pat) and she tends to have these accidents in nursery and for the life of me I have a hard time putting her in Pull-Ups during this time because I feel like that would be enabling her to continue to resist actually using the potty.
.
It also has to do with the fact that Li is still breastfeeding and if I can get him to nurse during the first meeting he might fall asleep for Jer, but if not then Jer is stuck with a crying baby out in the foyer that he can't do much for (Li still won't take a sippy I don't know what I'm going to do with him), but even if Jer can get him to sleep, Jer can't move once Li is asleep or he wakes up. This does away with moving between meetings. So Jer ends up missing ALL of his meetings except Sacrament and even in that meeting both he and I are constantly paying attention to the kidlets.

So, while I believe church is a good thing, especially for my kids, if it were only about me and not about my kids learning about Christ, morals, values, a good way to live life, and all that fun stuff from someone other than mom and dad... to be honest, I probably wouldn't go at all for a while.
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Give me strength!

Worried Sick.

Ok, so if you saw the news this morning you probably saw that there was a 7.8 earthquake in China.

Ya. My parents are in China right now.

I haven't heard from them and I'm starting to really worry.

The Earthquakes center was about where the red dot is on the map. My parents are supposed to be at about the blue dot if they were able to fly out of Hong Kong (the green dot) last night at about 8pm. Normally I would have thought that would be far enough... but this thing had people running out fo buildings in Bejing. That's 950 miles away. Farthur than my parents.

Heck, they say you could feel this thing in Thailand. Holy crap.

Here is a link to news from in China in English and here is a link to USGS website on shaking and damage that My sister Win sent me.

---PS for family that is checking this I have emailed dad's translator, called his business partner here, and went to mom and dad's home and found that mom's cell phone was left at home and dad's cell phone is turned off (whereever that may be). Jo called the International Red Cross and there have been no reports about any injured americans in the area that mom and dad are in, though it is still early. After watching things today and the more information that I have gathered I'm fairly certain that mom and dad are okay, we just have to allow time for the communications to come back up so that they can contact us.

Clumsy Me

OK. So I was reading one of my favorite blogs recently and it not only reminded me of Nat in many ways (aka the Ocean Car and the days of many dents in High school) but it also made me realize that there are so many things I do that others think are different (aka weird ...actually stupid might be a better term).

I'm oblivious.

If I don't notice your hair it's not cause I don't like it, it's cause I don't even see it. I remember being told by friends in high school that they saw me driving by and that I looked really grumpy as I looked right at them. Then they would proceed to ask if I was mad at them. lol Nope, just didn't see ya! But you were looking right at me! Sorry, really I didn't see you!

Jer asks me often if I noticed this or that. Never fails. I didn't notice. And you thought guys were oblivious!

Part of this obliviousness has a daily effect though. No, I don't loose my children (often).

I stub my toes.

I'm sure you think I mean on occasion. How often does the average person stub their toes? I just asked Jer how often he stubs his toes...

Me: "How often... I mean, do you ever stub your toes?"

Jer: "No, I watch where I walk."

So matter of fact! Like it's just THAT easy. Seriously I stub my toes at LEAST once a day. If not more. And not on random toys around the house like any normal mother. Nope, I stub them on the bottom of the chair I just got out of.... Or on the corner of the cabinet... oh, you know the one that holds the counter up in the kitchen? Yeah the one that was there yesterday. And that has been there since we BUILT THE HOUSE!!!

Honestly I'm surprised that I haven't ever broken any of my toes! or maybe I have but just didn't realize it cause I do it so often? Or could it be that my toes are so used to getting stubbed that they have built up a resistance!?

Yeah, I think that's it! I have superhuman toes!

Little Li is Nine Months Old!

Nine months old and my littlest kidlet yet! I took him to his doctors appointment yesterday. he is doing alright, he is healthy and happy! He is in the 10th percentile as far as his measurements go though. being 17 lbs 10 oz, 28 in long, and his head is 17.4 in around.
He is a little delayed as far as developmentally but the doctor isn't too worried due to the fact that he is army crawling :) Last night we made sure to start working with him on feeding himself and clapping etc.
I'm just happy that he is such a good and content baby!

Names Names Names

Yeah, so finding girls after their names have changed is a booger!

Currently I'm trying to help my old class officers with our 10 year reunion. The biggest job? You named it! Finding people! So do your old schoolmates a favor if you have a reunion comming up.... Find them!!!! lol

Cooking

OK, if you know me well, you know I hate to cook. No, let me rephrase that. I ABHOR cooking. Baking... that's OK. Desserts are great fun, but for some reason God decided to have me marry a man that doesn't like most desserts. THAT'S RIGHT! I can make heavenly brownies and he won't touch them. I will eat half of the pan myself if not most of it. If it weren't for the kids, I would be eating all of it. So if I ever want brownies I'd better be sure that I'm prepared to eat it all or throw away (gah! Sacrilege!) at least half of it.

As a kid I was spoiled. And by spoiled I mean I never had to do chore or cook or anything. I loved it! The thing was though... I never learned how to properly clean or cook due to lack of practice. You may think I should include laundry, but I got that down in high school... I mean how hard is it to sort and throw in a machine with detergent? anywho, when I got married I was a bit overwhelmed.

Cleaning was pretty straight forward for the most part and I was forced to learn that pretty quickly due to the fact that I hate filth. And due to the fact that I was preggo with Gavin by about a year after we got married. Babies will teach you how to clean... FAST.

Cooking on the other hand you can kind of flub.

Box dinners and such... especially if there are only 2 of you who really eat anything. I mean, how many recipes only make for 2? And if by chance you make something neither of you like... heaven forbid it stays FOREVER. So learning to cook with two of you is the pits. And then having a picky eater hubby makes it a little more difficult. Especially if you want to learn to cook healthy. Ha!

Well, I'm so proud of myself tonight! I made a meal. A meal that wasn't out of a box and that I actually had to chop stuff for! Can I say, I love Rachael Ray?

Tonight's dinner....

Meatloaf (good too, not that CRAP a tried to make a few weeks ago)
Real Mashed Potatoes (think I'll leave out the scallions next time)
and Green Beans :)

And the coolest thing about it? The WHOLE FAMILY would eat it! Yay!

My Daughter ... or a Little Freaky Midget Man?

OK, so every night at the dinner table if we are having anything remotely messy, Missy My gets it all over her face. Quiet often it ends up on her nose and forehead. Sad to say, but she may have gotten her hand eye coordination from me... and mine is horrid.

So tonight after dinner, Jer starts to laugh and says "come look at your daughter!" Here is what I beheld.

Uni brow from Hawaiian Punch and a Taco Soup goatee. LOL

Funny Baby

Mmmm Colors

OK, so I know this blog now officially clashes (at least Jer thinks so! lol). But I wanted to see what all I could do on my own as far as editing the background and title to match. I found those shiny funky letters and loved them. Unfortunately I'm not a huge fan of pale yellow (which is the only color that really lends itself nicely to teal). Outside of wall paint and flowers it's just not me!

So until I get a chance to once again spend a bit of time editing the crap out of the blog...

Hate to say it, your eyes may have to bare with me for a bit!

UPDATE: changed it since

Blast Off

Big G, Missy My, and Mr. M having a ball war at Blast Off. They had tons of fun. :)

Cute pic of Missy My.

Ode to the retainer...

In fifth grade I wore headgear. All 24 hours long. Every day. Just like I was told to. Nasty ugly thing that it was! I felt like a bumper car at the fair with that thing sticking out in front of my face all the time, but figured in the end it would be worth it and I would be done with it sooner than later. True that was, I was done with headgear in less than a year.

Then came the braces. Add to that the rubber bands and the regular tightening appointments at the orthodontist's office. Oh the sore mouth! I remembering not wanting to eat ANYTHING just for the fact that my gums felt bruised. Two years later I was through with the braces! Hooray!

I had perfectly straight, healthy, shiny teeth! And a permanent retainer to keep them in place... I hated flossing around it, but what was a kid to do?


A few years later I had dental work done that they had to cute through the permanent retainer to do... and then again a year or so later... after a while of patching up the darned thing I could no longer floss around it. So they took it off. And gave me one to wear at night.

This is where I fell off the wagon. Hard.

nighttime? when you get to college isn't that the time you are supposed to sleep? Remember to wear my retainer.... Ha! It had been a few years anyhow right? What was the likelihood that my teeth would move now anyways?! (I assumed, not high)

Well, I was sorely mistaken. Now I have a big gap between my two front teeth. And to fix it doesn't just mean something simple. Oh, no. It means braces again. OH THE HORROR. Why, oh why didn't I wear my retainer? I now realize that I effectively chucked my parents well earned money down the loo.

Grrrrr.