{Not} Wordless {At All} Wednesday

The kids and I have been really struggling in the evenings (you know, getting through them... ahem) on school nights. The kids are tired. I'm tired. They have an afternoon chart to follow to help guide them through the transition from "school mode" to "home mode" but as soon as they're done with the chart, more often than not it becomes melt-down central around here.

Yesterday I decided that something needs to change. Before Jack and I left to go get the kids from the bus stop, I made a list (it's what I do. I make lists...). I wrote down what the kids were going to make for dinner. Yes, they were going to make dinner. All of it. I assigned each kid a food group and made a list of what they would be doing (including every detail so they felt like each task was a HUGE deal to accomplish). Then I set out everything on the counter that they would need to set the table so that they could keep busy doing that while I was prepping for them to get started with their cooking.

Can I just say TOTAL SUCCESS?! The evening went great! They were so excited to cook (they usually only help with baking) and they were each even more excited to taste what the others made - they even wanted to take the leftovers to school today in their lunches (WIN!)!

Carter cleared the table after dinner and Natalie loaded the dishwasher while Jack, uh... supervised. No attitudes, no whining, no melt downs and no time-outs the whole evening. It was amazing! However, since I'm really good at procrastinating and generally not planning ahead, I'm going to have to make a few a lot of changes if I want to keep this up (which I do!).

So, there you have it. I officially have my kids making dinner and cleaning up afterwards. HOLLA!

{Jack's job was the green beans. He claimed it was the best part of the meal.}

{Carter was on "baked potato duty." I'm pretty sure our water bill will be doubled this month, but the potatoes were definitely clean...}

{Natalie did the lightly breaded baked chicken breasts. She LOVED it!}

{If you could kindly look past my disastrous kitchen to simply take in how adorable these kids are working together it would be much appreciated, mmkay? Thanks.} ;)

I "Might Have" Monday

I might have accidently set my alarm for 6pm instead of 6am the first morning back to school after Spring Break...

And I might have been grateful for my three year old who woke me up at 6:35am which meant that I did turn into "crazy mommy" and make it to the bust stop right behind the bus on time.

I'm just sayin'... it might have went down like that this morning - because honestly, when you've had a good amount of this:

Combined with a good amount of this:

Who would want Spring Break to be over?

Kid Quote

From May 23, 2010:

(As I was praying with Carter before bed) Me: "Dear Jesus, thank you for the great day we had today. Thank you for being w/Carter as he did such a good job at the music program. Please help him to not pick his nose while Mommy's praying. Amen."

Carter: "My turn! Dear Jesus, please be with Mommy and help her to not be such a tattle-tale. Amen."

Happy Birthday, Mom!

{My Mom and me last Thanksgiving.}

Carter: "Wait - it's Grandma's birthday today!? How old is she....34?"

Natalie: "No Carter, she's 33. Grandpa told me."

Jack: "Her needs some ballooons."


:::Happy Birtday Mom, Sis. We love you SOOOOOOOOOOO much!:::

Weekend WIN!

After barely making it through Friday We had a remarkable weekend!
Saturday morning we got up WAY before the sun (which I'm pretty sure is illegal in most states - no?). Jeff and I woke up at 4:30am to get dressed quickly and pack the Suburban because we were taking the kids CLAMMING (a first for us all)! Jeff's brother John met us at our house at 5:20am and after getting the kids up and all bundled and ready for a (possibly rainy) day at the beach we grabbed some coffee and headed out.

Can I just say it was perfect? Because it really was. It was so much fun! It wasn't windy, it didn't rain, there wasn't anyone else around, and we all had a blast.

{Our gear's all ready to go!}

{Uncle John, Carter and Jack}

{Natalie}

{Uncle John and Carter}

{Jeff and Jackson}

{See? I was there!}

Immediately after clamming and hitting Dutch Bro's for some hot cocoa we headed to Jeff's parent's house for some cards, March Madness, a long walk, and a warm fire. It was a great day!

Sunday we slept in (oops) and my brother Zach came over with a friend of his while they were down in Eugene visiting from Portland. It was so nea to see the kids get so excited to see him (and by "see him" I mean "clobber him"). After their visit, we took the kids to town to see their (our) first 3D movie at he $1.50 theater - again, major hit! On the way home, my husband (who must love me more than anything) drove us to a thrift store where we browsed for about 45 minutes (I.love.thrifting!) and each found at least one thing we considered a treasure (a pair of name brand jeans that fit perfectly for $4? Holla!).

After thrifting our little hearts out, we stopped and grabbed a RedBox movie to watch after the kids were in bed.

Jeff took today (Monday) and tomorrow off of work for an extended weekend and the kids will be spending the night tonight with my parents (again - HOLLA!) so we'll get a date night (yay!).

Seriously - SUCH a good (much needed) weekend. Apparently the kids enjoyed it too, because on the way home last night Natalie could hardly contain her excitement as she said, "Wow! I have so much to write about for my 'Spring Break' entry in my journal at school next week! This is awesome!"

Win!

Wordless Wednesday

The One Where I Was A Copy-Cat

I'm borrowing this from my sister who did sort of an "about me" as her last post and I loved reading it! (And not just because she said I was her favorite blogger...)

So, here it goes - join us, I can't wait to read yours!

• Favorite time of day - Evening. My time with the kids AND Jeff is priceless to me.
• Favorite season - Fall (by far!)
• Favorite month - October
• Favorite holiday - Thanksgiving (it's all about family, and simply being together and being thankful - how awesome is that!?)
• Favorite subject in school - English
• Favorite channel - HGTV
• Favorite color - Green and purple. And blue. And orange. I like a lot of colors.
• Favorite song - Alli Rogers "Who Is This God"
• Favorite movie - Blindside
• Favorite celebrity - Julia Roberts, Rachael McAdams and Mark Ruffalo
• Favorite kind of music - I don't know - depends on my mood really.
• Favorite tv show - Parenthood
• Favorite thing to do - Going on a date with my husband. They are few and far between these days.
• Favorite place in the world to be - My husband's arms (did you just throw up in your mouth?)
• Favorite hobby - What's a hobby again??
• Favorite kind of animal - Dogs - big dogs. I don't care too much for the small lap dogs that seem (to me) to be more of like glorified cats. (One exception: My brother's Min-Pin, Mina.... now that she doesn't try to eat my children anymore.)
• Favorite place to live - In the country
• Favorite place to vacation - Vacation... hhmmm. I haven't had enough of these to make a solid decision.
• Favorite restaurant - I don't really have one... but I like most of them since it means I'm not cooking or cleaning.
• Favorite food - Lasagna
• Favorite thing to cook - Lasagna
• Favorite drink - Coffee
• Favorite chore - Vacuuming
• Favorite makeup - Bare Essentials/Minerals
• Favorite hair products - Biolage
• Favorite lotion - Victoria's Secret, Very Sexy
• Favorite perfume - If I don't smell like bananas, glue sticks, or a cleaning product I don't complain...
• Favorite memory - When Jeff and I graduated from college, because they were both such proud moments for us (we had worked together so hard to make it happen) and it was great to see how proud our parents were of both of us, too.
• Favorite blogger - Way too hard to pick just one! (Jackie, Brittany, Renee, Allison, and Katherine to name a few)
• Favorite thing to blog about - My crazy-awesome kids!
• Favorite book - "Redeeming Love" by Francine Rivers
• Favorite Verse - Romans 8:28
• Favorite thing to wear - Cardigans and Converse
• Favorite kind of day - Rainy day spent inside with family (fire in the fireplace, playing cards, dinner in the oven, coffee brewing, wearing jeans and a hoodie - perfection)
• Favorite job - Raising babies with my hero-hubby

Your turn!

Fit Friday

I haven't written a "Fit Friday" post in a couple of weeks because well, I haven't been feeling all that fit (or been making that huge of an attempt to get there either). I'm not proud of it, but sometimes life just gets in the way (and by "life" I obviously mean "ice cream").

So anyway, I'm getting back on track. I gave up refined sugar for lent. I actually started it on Monday, so I'm officially 4 days off sugar. It feels good to not have that constant craving all.the.time (because I was/am ADDICTED to that crap), but it's hard because I can feel myself trying to fill that craving gap with wine other things and that sort of defeats the whole purpose. I want to do this as a sacrifice to the Lord, as a reminder to myself all that He has given up for me because He loves me so much and not simply exchange what I'm giving up for something else.

That's where I'm at. Today I'm starting my running program again (and again, by "running" I obviously mean "jogging a touch faster than a walk") and I'm excited about this. I can't jump in to any program and expect to change everything all at once. I know myself enough to know that I will get burned out and quit and then feel even worse about myself, so I'm going slow (figuratively and literally).

A friend of mine mentioned the other day that "doing something (as small as that something may be) is better than nothing" so I'm starting with a little something instead of getting fed up and doing nothing. I can't do nothing. Nothing obviously hasn't been working out for me. So, back to drinking 64 oz of water a day, running (jogging) 3x/week and no refined sugar. Something has gotta give.

Even though this isn't super inspiring (or inspiring at all) I'm trying to keep it real and just be honest about where I'm at, even though it's a little (a lot) embarrassing.

+18

Growing A Brain

I've been telling Jack lately that he needs to play (or color, or do puzzles, etc.) in order for his brain to grow so that when it's time for him to go to school he'll be ready to learn - just like the big kids (because he's been obsessed with cartoons lately - but luckily he's also always obsessed with being just like the older kids).

He was STOKED about this new concept (of brain growth) and after running of to play with toys for a while he would run back to me saying, "Can you see my brain growing, Mommy!? It's getting bigger! YAY for going to school!"

Sweet little guy.

He was so excited about it all that while I was folding clothes and watching HGTV yesterday, he ran up to me and said, "Mommy! Your brain won't grow if you watch that!" To which I promptly replied, "It's okay, I can watch all I want - Mommy is all done with school." Ahem.

Anyway, I was so ecstatic about how well this was all working out and how excited he was getting about not watching cartoons until this morning when he plopped his little body on the couch and just blurted out, "I don't care if my brain grows tiny. I miss Curious George."

Wordless Wednesday

Learning Something New

I found something out this weekend... My Mom knows how to knit!

WHO KNEW!?

Not me, or I wouldn't have spent countless hours on you-tube watching tutorials on how to do it and then trying to click the mouse to pause the video with needles and yarn tangled between my fingers.

She walked in our house on Saturday, saw my knitting stuff in my basket and exclaimed, "Karey! You're knitting!? I know how to do that!" And just started off with some yarn. My jaw hit the ground. She does know how! But later, when she claimed that she could also still rock at roller skating if she wanted to, I didn't take her quite so serious. {We'll have to see that one proven, Mom.}

A few minutes later, while she's cruising along with some extra needles and yarn that I have, she asked to see what I've done so far. Apparently, this is where I should have just taken a seat. But I didn't. I excitedly grabbed my roll (ball?) of yarn with my start-of-a-scarf attached and proudly lift it up so she could see.

{This is after I pulled out most of it, but you get the idea. It wasn't pretty.}

She exploded into laughter. And not the I'm-laughing-with-you kind. The other kind.

Even though she knows I'm just beginning, she couldn't help but look at my work and bust a gut. Apparently it's just that pathetic. {I'll admit, I was wondering what I was doing wrong, but you-tube doesn't have a question-and-answer tutorial for knitting mess-ups so I just kept plugging away at it hoping it would end up looking better. It didn't.}

So, after the laughing died down and I was done taking pictures of my lame misshaped scarf-start my Mom helped me see what I was doing wrong, and then got me started on a new scarf.

All-in-all a good afternoon (especially since laughing burns calories). I learned something new about my Mom, and she got to teach me (yet again) something new as well (how to knit in a straight line which, apparently, is crucial to a successful  knitting experience).

Thank you, Mom.

I'm gonna take a guess that...

• ...the the first reason stated in the email titled, "Top 3 Reasons You're Not Losing Weight" was "You Delete These Emails!"

• ...my kids start screaming at each other and throwing fits the second I'm talking to any doctor, dentist, or social services employee on the phone because they want to see how fast they can make my head literally explode into a million pieces.

• ...the high school student in the school office this morning who was wondering if her outfit was within the dress-code already knew the answer before she walked in there. Seriously sweetheart, if you have to ask...

• ...when I ask my kids if they want to sit in a time out the answer is always going to be a whiny, "Nooooo!" So, why do I find myself still asking?!

• ...not everyone would classify the activities I do to stretch out my jeans as exercise - but I do. Hello - Yoga, anyone!?

• ...when I signed in to volunteer at the school this morning and wrote down the date as, "February 29, 2010" it was just because I was so tired - not because I didn't remember that the 29th of February isn't even a day this year. I promise it was the exhaustion... Promise.