Move over bacon..........

There is a new sheriff in town- and it is my new found shoes! As mentioned, Rebecca gifted me all of her too-big-now shoes. And I am in heaven. The new loves of my life needed a home- which means only one thing: clean out the closet.

Interestingly enough, I got a post card from the DAV and they are going to swing by Thursday to pick up whatever we don't want anymore. Bingo.

My first thought- sack up all the dirty laundry in the house and throw it on the porch! Then I could scratch that off my list too. But after much consideration, that turned out to be a fairly bad choice, so I thought better of it. Looks like I'll have to wash it afterall.

Then I turned to our closet. Ick. After too many minutes of simply moving things back to their proper place in my children's closets- I got down to business.

Any clothes with DUST on them, are obviously not being used and can go.

Anything that physically won't fit us (with a few exceptions of course) can go.

Anything that shows obvious wear, put in the trash.
The fact that I actually washed, folded and put these away just goes to show I am tooooo tired. $10 says my husband will try to justify keeping them. I'm not joking.

Back to business. Anything of my husbands that is tacky and yucky, gone.

Anything that has been piled up waiting on mending- relocated to a new pile.

Here is the pile I am hoping to remember to put on the porch for DAV- that is if I can keep my husband from putting back into the closet (he's baaaaad about letting things go-perhaps you will notice the cowboy boots and golfing shoes in the pictures? point made)


I rearranged for a bit- and voila- created room for all my new shoes!



Did you think I was joking??? Rebecca had more shoes that didn't fit anymore than I have owned in years. I love shoes- but I love groceries too so I haven't put a bunch of money into footwear for a while. And now........I won't have to for a long time to come either!

Dan is going to come home and feel all violated, I just know it. But- I will justify taking almost the entire top shelf of the closet for shoes by his entire shelf of hats-
Yeah- some real beauties in there, I tell ya.

While sorting and straightening- I found the box that contains this:

This is a strand of pearls that Dan bought for me a few years ago. I'd never mentioned that I would LOVE to have a real strand of pearls, but I guess he knew. They are special to me, because he picked them out just for me. This is the strand of pearls that I expect my girls to someday bicker of who will get. Not because they are some fine, rare piece of jewelry. But because they are special to me, and they are the ones I wear to funerals and weddings and store in the special velvet package inside of the box in my closet.

So- it took me less than an hour to create two bags of stuff to get rid of, clear the pile of shoes off my bedroom floor, and make an entire pile of clothes to mend. During that time- my children ran amok and have created an entire days worth of mess to clean up. I will spare you the photos. Just trust me.

I'm off to hide in my closet.

Why do they get an opinion?

Ally stumbled into the living room over the weekend and noticed a new pair of boots. "Whose are those????" she asked.


Mine of course. Thank goodness Miss Rebecca's loosing weight by the bucket and in turn her feet have shrunk and she gifted me some fabulous new hoofers!


"Those are too cool for you mom".

Yeah. Too cool for me I suppose. But mine none the less- and today I stumbled around helplessly in them. But eventually I found my balance and I felt all trendy and cool.

Please note- I had to take these pictures strategically in order not to show how incredible dirty my floor is. THAT is why I am cool.

Dear Emily,
When I was pregnant with you, the question often came up as to if I wanted a boy or a girl. The answer was always that I didn't care, I just knew that I wanted you. In my heart I think I knew all along that you were, in fact, a girl.

Your dad and I couldn't decide on a girl name. I brought up Emily a few times- Dad was not a fan so he pushed it out of my mind. Until one night, while pregnant with you, I awoke from a dream and just knew your name had to be Emily. I woke up your dad and asked again, and this time he said yes. And from the minute you entered this world, we both knew that you were an Emily.

You are such an incredible person- very gentle and loving and joyful. I so am amazed in watching you grow and learn and develop. I am blessed to be your mom, I knew that from the moment I found out you were in my belly.

There is not a moment, not a single moment that I can imagine my world had you not joined our family.

And I am so very thankful that you chose me to be your mom. It is my hope that as we continue down this path of life, that you will grow into the fine young woman that God has designed you to be- and that you will consider me not only your mom, but a friend.

Happy 6th Birthday my sweet sweet Emma. I love you, more than you could ever know.

Mindless Chex Mix Pot Potpourri

What a busy week. Busy about nothing- but busy none the less. I don't know where our time goes, but it does seem to go. So- I will now proceed to bore you to death with details of our week.
Emily and Allyson have began the Upwards basketball program. Emily is (obviously) a cheer leader and Ally is playing basketball. Miraculously enough, their practices are on the same night at the same time (thankyouverymuch) which works out perfectly! Games are a different story- let's just say Saturdays are gonna be kind of busy for the next two months. You know- I am a strict 'you can only participate in one activity at a time' kind of mother. I hate for the kids to get overextended or too busy- not to mention the stress it puts on the family when there are too many places to run to all the time. So, being the 'strict' mother I am- their one activity is the basketball thing. Plus girlscouts for both. Plus piano lessons for ally. Plus a club at school for emily. Plus a new choir thing for ally through school. Plus church activities. Yeah, I suck at this don't I. But look, they are not in swimming lessons, ballet or gymnastics. I think that counts for something.

Allyson won a reward by getting all of her reading goals met for the first semester. I say won loosely, as the 'prize' is a certificate to the golden corral. The golden corral. Let's just say I would rather cook dinner over a candle flame than eat there. And yet, yipee, we won! Maybe Dan can take her for her reward- they both LOVE it there. And what's not to love, 18 kinds of potatoes, greasy fried everything, and total and complete strangers picking over it all. Yum.

As previously mentioned, Sam got the birthday snack bucket this week. His pick? Sugar Cookies. When making the cookies with him, it became blaringly apparent that he is a sibling of all older sisters. His choices for cookie cutters? A star, a heart or a flower. And, interestingly enough, we mixed red sprinkles in with the mix which did in fact turn them pink (oops). So this proud little 4 year old took pink flower cookies for his birthday treat. Uhg.

I did manage to take down the decorations this week. With the exception of the wreath in the middle of the dining room table- I always forget something. Eventually I will drag it upstairs and put it away too. But before we took the tree down, I experimented with the coolest pair of glasses that one of Ally's sunday school teachers gave her. Look at this picture, it turns all the lights into tiny snowmen. I LOVE these glasses. And how cool that it worked when I put it over the lens of my camera. Did I mention how busy I'd been this week? Not to busy to screw around with the kids toys I suppose : )

I have in fact completed two more scarves. And look- they are straight! I even striped the one. Yeah- I'm the crocheting godess now. As long as what you desire is square or rectangle, that is. We are going to have THE warmest necks in town! Sam requested mittens- I laughed (out loud) at him. Mittens, hah!

Because Monday was especially hairy, I declared it Sundae Monday and made brownie sundaes right before bedtime. Anything covered in hot chocolate sauce makes a bad day better. And I make some really good brownies, mind you. I have my own recipe- very secret special recipe. I was going to type it here for you, but then figured what they heck- I'd just snap a picture of the box and you can buy your own. The recipe is printed right on the box. I'm such a chef.

And today- well today is Meat Madness Sale day at Marsh! I REALLY need to get a hobby, but for now this is the stuff that makes my heart go pitter pat. Stocking up on ground beef and chicken breasts. Who knew it would come to this? Hope you have a happy Meat Maddness Sale day!

It's that time of year X 2

Once again, we embark upon the turn of the new year and the pitter pat of girl scout feet and their over priced baked goods. Only this year, something is different. We have TWO of them living in our home. With their order forms firmly clutched in their hands, they have physically attacked every person we know begging for orders. Except our neighbors. Being the weenie that I am, I have yet to bundle us all up to truck around the neighborhood forcing our neighbors to return the favor (me=years of buying their kids candles, candies, sausages, popcorn).

Emily is beaming, she is so excited to get to sell. Allyson is annoyed that her little sister gets to sell. I am personally dreading trying to keep all their money straight and separated- but it is cool to see them working on something, kind of together. Who am I kidding- all they are doing is jumping over one another to attack our family members first. But still fun to watch I suppose.

Everyone justifies buying the cookies with a 'they are just soo good'. And I agree- girlscout cookies are good. But at $3.50 a pop they dang well better be- can I get an AMEN! But it's for a good cause, blah blah blah. The troops do raise a lot of money to get to do some really cool things- so that is something to look forward to!

But- consider yourselves warned- if you hear a knock on your door it might just be one of these sweet innocent girls with their boxed crack for sale. You decide if you want to open the door or not.

Oh- and starting mid February you won't be safe on the weekends at the groceries either as the cookie booths will begin.

Me personally? Just counting down the days to Feb 13 for my box(es) of tag a longs to arrive. They make it all worth while!

Celebration #2

Birthdays turn into birthweeks around our house. We always celebrate on the actual day with just the five of us. Then we have a bigger family get together or a friend party. And, if you are hip to the preschool network (which is only Sam now), there is usually 'special birthday snack bucket day' where the birthday person gets to bring a special snack for all their preschool buddies. Yesterday was Sam's family party day:







And, for those of you who expect me to be completely bakerly challenged, feast your eyes on this:

Ha! Not too shabby- even if the frosting did taste like pure crisco.

Sam took a look at the cake and said maybe we should have done the train cakes afterall. There is just no pleasing this young man.

What do you do?

At the last daisy scout meeting, another mom looked at me and said "So Mrs. Crazy Lady- what do you do?"

Huh. What do I do? Before I could grasp what she was asking, I responded "A lot of laundry."

I realize now she meant what I did- for money. But what I do, for the measley 12 hours I 'work' is NOTHING compared to what I do.

As any other mother in the universe already knows, when you are the mom you 'do' a lot. You even do the things that make you silently wish there were someone else who would do them, like dig dead fish out of the tank or scrub poop out of the carpet.

Among the obvious things that we mothers must do- you know, all the 'normal' stuff that includes mopping up melting snow from the floors, scrubbing the kitchen sinks, turning food into dinners, wrapping birthday presents and keeping the home (which is a list all of it's own)- we all get saddled with the other stuff that no one wants to do.

Last night, as I was crawling around on the floor of the bathroom trying to locate the overwhelming smell of urine (oh stop- if you have a boy child you have probably done this too), I couldn't believe what my days have turned into.

What do I do? I clean up puke, I get up in the middle of the night to change sheets, I google things like "what to substitute if a recipe calls for eggs and I am out", I put my hand into the garbage disposal to dig out treasures that slip in there, I use fingernail polish remover to clean up 'accidents' from the bathroom floors, I put soap in the bathrooms (apparently no one else has grasped this task), I re-roll toilet paper, I fish things out of the register vents, I play monopoly- even when I would rather just sit down for a while, I scrape chewed bubble gum off the deck, I gently pull back the clothe to see how bad the cut is (even though it scares me to death), I rewash the clothes because 'somebody' had a marker in their pants pockets, I google things like "how to get vasoline out of carpet"- and then I try them all until something works, I carry the 40lb. child through the mall because their legs are tired and my husband won't, I read the books at night when I'm so tired that I could collapse, I rescue the guinea pig from under the bed, I use my shirt as a kleenex for small children (limited to only the ones who grew inside of me- there is a limit) when there is no other option, I put the same things away every.dag.gone.day, I climb on a lawn chair with a rake to try and get whatever toy has been thrown on the roof down, and on and on and on.

It's nothing that any mother has never done. We all do it. I just never knew what I was signing up for.

But yet, here I sit after an entire day of working around the house, and it still looks like a bomb went off in it. Not a small bomb that would blow up a room, but a big big bomb that could take out a town. And I have to wonder, what on earth did I do all day? Note to husband: Do not EVER repeat that question to me- that is, if you like being able to walk upright.

So- what do I do? Nothing that any other mother hasn't had to do. Except my mom, that is, all of us kids were easy and self sufficient.