Making Cookies

Yesterday, Hannah really wanted to make mint chocolate chip cookies and cookie dough, as she put it. Who would argue with a chance to make cookies? :) So after dinner we got to work on the cookies. Ben was not feeling the best so he was downstairs watching TV, Sarah Kate was playing on the computer, Adam was asleep, and that left Hannah, Gracie, and Dan to help me. The kids looked so cute helping that I just had to grab the camera. I just love these kids. They're growing up so quickly.

This picture shows each kids personality so well. Dan's helping turn the bowl, Gracie's trying to eat the cookie dough, and Hannah's pulling a silly pose. Perfect!

The girls both wanted to lick the scrapper so instead of fighting they decided to share.

Yummy!

Best friends and best sisters.

Dan has discovered the love of licking the spoon. He wandered around the kitchen for at least 10 minutes working on the spoon.

Fat Turkey

At Thanksgiving time the kids learned a new song in Primary. I was there the first time they heard it because we were taking the nursery kids to singing time to get them ready for primary. I almost laughed out loud when I heard it for the first time. I meant to blog about it, but completely forgot. I heard the kids singing it the other day and I laughed all over again. I want to remember it for next Thanksgiving so I thought I'd blog it even though Thanksgiving is over.

It goes to the tune of "Here We Are Together" from the primary hymnbook.

"Gobble, gobble, gobble, fat turkey, fat turkey. Gobble, gobble, gobble, fat turkey's are we. We're not here for living, we're here for Thanksgiving. Gobble, gobble, gobble fat turkey's are we."

I love it. Don't know why, I just thought it was so hilarious. The kids enjoy it to and it's fun to listen to them. So that's my Thanksgiving song of the day. Hope you enjoyed.

Table Sliding

If all the slides outside are covered in snow, make a slide inside:

Daddy started the fun with a laundry basket. How fun!

We borrowed some tables and chairs from the church and before we took them back we decided to have a little fun with them. The little kids spent hours climbing up them and sliding down. Sometimes I wish I were a kids again.

The backwards/headfirst slide is always a winner.

Go Dan GO!

I just love this picture. What cute little bums.

Dan loved sliding, but I could never get him smiling because whenever he saw the camera he stopped to look at it.

A Day In The Life Of Me

Fun with makeup. What a great way to top off the day!

Many people have asked me how I do what I do, how I make it through the day and how I manage as the mother of 6 small children. Most days it's just life, it's just what we do and though it's hectic, exhausting, and nonstop I make it through with some sanity left over. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids and I love how close in age they are, it's just hard right now. That's most days. Of course there are days where sanity is nonexistent.

Case in point, my Monday the 6th of December. It started out a little worse than most days. I couldn't sleep the night before and remember looking at the clock at 2:00 am and wanting so badly to be asleep. This is not atypical for me, but Adam woke up at 5:30 and I was unable to go back to sleep. So I started my day with about 3 1/2 hours of sleep which only made the 4 1/2 hours of sleep the night before that much harder. Never good. I got the kids off to school, did the dishes (I was too tired the night before to get the kitchen cleaned) and then around 8:30 I put "The Princess and The Frog" on for the girls and went to fold the 5 loads of laundry I'd been accumulating.

9:30 came and it was time to start moving. I took a shower, put the kids in the bath tub, fed the baby, got everyone dressed, hair done and ready to go to speech. This Monday was the first day of Gracie's speech and I wanted to be on time. We were set to leave 15 minutes early, plenty of time, when I went downstairs and found Dan on the art table drenched in water that the girls had been playing with. So, I rushed him upstairs, dried him, changed him, redid his hair, got his coat on and we were off. We were actually only 5 minutes late which was very surprising to me. Hannah goes to speech first at 11:30 and Gracie goes at 11:45. Gracie was NOT happy that she had to wait 10 minutes for her speech. She had been looking forward to speech for the entire week and she just couldn't wait 10 more minutes. She kept trying to go to Hannah's speech while I was trying to fill out paperwork. What a pain. Finally Amber, her speech therapist, came to get her and Gracie was more than happy to go back with her.

Kenny had a meeting in Pocatello for work and had to be at the grocery store to catch his carpool ride at 12:30. I rushed home to pick him up and found him on the phone for work, still not ready. He got off the phone, showered, got ready and we headed out around 12:30. Luckily the people waiting for him were just as late as he was. The real problem was that Hannah got out of speech at 12:15 and Gracie got out at 12:30 so I was really late picking them up. They had to sit there for 30-45 minutes by themselves and I hate not being there when my kids get out of an activity. I guess that's the price paid for having only one car.

We got home around 1:30 and it was time for lunch, naps, and getting ready for the kids to get home from school. Hannah had asked for macaroni and cheese so I sent the girls to play while I cooked. I thought I'd keep Dan up so he could eat it, but by the time it was cooked he had just about fallen asleep in his highchair. I decided to just let him go to bed, which, I'm sure, was just fine with him. I fed the girls, sent them downstairs to take a nap, (a miracle of the day was that they actually slept without any problems,) and then it was time to feed the baby. By the time I got everyone fed and in bed I had 10 minutes before Ben and Sarah got home from school, so much for that nap I wanted.

After getting homework done I went to finish folding clothes, sat down on the bed and was asleep in about10 seconds, there was that nap. I totally didn't mean to do it, but it was great. My wonderful kids let me sleep for about an hour and even though I had a ton to do I REALLY needed the nap. When I woke up I found out why the kids let me sleep. Sarah had been reading Harry Potter, her new obsession, Ben was playing the PlayStation, a definite obsession of his, the girls were playing downstairs, and the little boys were still asleep.

When I woke up I could hear the girls giggling downstairs and having so much fun. I thought how wonderful it was that they were having such a great time together. I went ahead and finished folding the clothes and then headed down to see what they were doing that was so fun. I should have checked a lot earlier. I heard the water running and the first thing I saw was a naked Hannah walking from the bathroom to her bedroom with a bowl full of water. When I went to investigate further I found Gracie, also naked, in her room playing with a bin full of water. They had taken the bin that holds their stuffed animals, dumped it out, and filled it full of water. Of course a 3 and 4 year old aren't the best of aim and the entire floor from the bathroom to the bin was soaked and all around the bin was soaked. They had also filled the Barbie swimming pool which I didn't know was full of water and I accidentally kicked over. I managed to stay calm and asked them what they were doing. They said they wanted to take a bath in their bedroom. Of course, what else would they be doing? At least they took their clothes off in preparation for the bath. We had a nice long talk about how we don't take baths in our bedroom and how water stays in the bathroom, then they helped me clean it up with some help from Sarah who managed to get her face out of her book when she heard all the commotion (Ben couldn't manage to break away from the game.)

Shortly after the cleanup Kenny called and needed me to pick him up. Dan was awake by then so I took him with me, leaving all the other kids home. When we got back I fed the baby, made dinner, and began the nightly routine. Kenny had to go back to work at 6:30 so I was on my own as far as getting the kids in bed. I had everyone get in jammies, clean up a little (yeah right,) and then head upstairs for scriptures, Christmas stuff, and prayers. While changing Adam into jammies the little girls and Dan were having fun in my bathroom. They found my makeup, yes I do own makeup, and were having fun putting it on. As I walked in they were just opening up the eyeshadow. Luckily I caught it before it got too bad, but it was the final straw for me. I was so tired and I just wanted to sit on the floor and cry. I sent the kids to the couch, composed myself, and grabbed the camera. Even though the makeup wasn't too bad, I decided to take pictures to document my over the top day. Again I had a talk with the little girls about staying out of my makeup and then scrubbed their faces.

Gracie got the most mascara on her. Nice look don't you think?

Hannah pulling a silly face. Typical Hannah. :)

After that it was time for scriptures, stories, and prayers. This never goes well, but we suffered through it and I'm determined to do it every night (OK not every night, but definitely most nights) in hopes that one day they'll learn to sit reverently and they'll remember something we've learned. I sent the 4 biggest kids to brush their teeth and put Dan and Adam in bed. Then it was story time for the little girls, and time to have Ben read to me. Finally at just after 9:00 I came upstairs and was able to sit down for a few minutes. I had to Facebook the pictures of the kids, document my day for everyone I know, and after that it was clean up time. Even though I was exhausted I decided to finish the dishes because I know how better my day goes when I wake up with a clean kitchen. Kenny got home late and we watched a little TV to numb the day. I fed the baby again and got ready for bed. I was so exhausted, but again, I couldn't sleep. It was past 1:00 when I finally dosed off, ready to wake up the next day and do it all over again.

Sadly this is not too much of an atypical day for me. Sure I don't often have first days of speech, drenched babies while trying to be on time, stress with one car, baths in bedrooms, makeup messes and so on, but it seems to always be something. I never get a chance to settle down and relax and sometime it wares on me. I've got to find some time in my crazy life to stop, but I just don't know where. I have decided to always do the dishes and clean up before bed. This helps my days go by so much smoother and I'm typically up anyway. As far as the sleep goes, I don't know that I'll fix that until our crazy life and stress goes away or at least diminishes a little. I've been working real hard on trying to be happier and not overreact to things my kids do. Being so exhausted and stressed all the time has left me not the happiest and I don't want my kids to remember me that way. I plan on blogging about this later so I'll elaborate then.

So that's one of my crazy days and how I made it through. I was quite happy with myself that I was able to stay fairly calm and not yell at the kids or break down and cry. I've been doing well with the nighttime routine with the kids and getting the kitchen and upstairs clean before bed. Now if only I can work on that sleep. :)

Christmas Decorating

The early snowfall this year really put me in the Christmas spirit. I so badly wanted to decorate the house before Thanksgiving, but I was very patient (really I was too lazy to get them out) and waited until the day after Thanksgiving to bring out the decorations. Friday morning I hauled all the bins upstairs, opened them up, and the kids went crazy. Next year I'll have to be more organized and keep the kids from pulling everything out at once. They had a lot of fun, but it added hours to my work. I don't mind too much. I remember every December when we brought out the Christmas decorations. It was such a magical time. All those ornaments, pictures, and ceramics that were only seen once a year. It was almost as fun as Christmas morning (almost.) I hope my kids have fond memories of decorating for Christmas like I do. We don't have may Christmas decorations, but they bring Christmas cheer to our house and I'm excited to collect more as the years go on.

Hannah and Grace playing with the nativity set and the Santa door hanger.

Mr. Froggy who sings Jingle Bells. We got this from my in-laws a few years ago and the kids LOVE it. Dan absolutely loves it and is constantly bringing it to me and making me push the button.

I've always wanted a fireplace to hang our stocking from. We have one this

year, but it's not big enough to hang all 8 stockings. It looks great with 6

stockings so we decided to only hand the kids stockings from the

fireplace. Sure is a lot of stockings.

The stockings are still lacking features I want to add like names and maybe trim around the top, but they'll do for now. First I have to get Daniel's made for this year and Adam's made for next year. For now they're using the My First Christmas stockings that have gone through all the kids.

Our 'Little People' Nativity set. This was a gift from my Mom and I absolutely love it. I put it down low so the kids can play with it and they're constantly pulling it out and reenacting the birth of Jesus. It's so cute and I love that it's not breakable.

Mr. Christmas Tree! This is another favorite in our house. It's almost always the first thing out of the bin.

Happy Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving at home this year. Just our little family. It was sad knowing my family was all together at my Mom and Dad's house and Kenny's sisters and parents were all together in Draper, but at the same time it was nice to be home with just us. Kenny's been gone so much lately that we really enjoyed having a day where he could stay home. I cooked a small Thanksgiving meal with ham instead of turkey (Kenny doesn't like turkey and that's fine with me.) Even though we had a small dinner, we had way too much food, most of which the kids didn't want to eat. I've decided that next year I'll forgo the traditional Thanksgiving dinner and just cook a good dinner everyone will eat.

Our modest Thanksgiving dinner.

We took a trip to Walmart to see if we could find some winter boots for Sarah (she doesn't have any that fit and we haven't been able to find any in her size.) While there we got snack stuff and just enjoyed the fairly empty store and the time together. We came home, finished cooking dinner, ate, watched' Elf' and just spent time together. It was a wonderful, quite day and was refreshing for a change.

The kids waiting for dinner to start.

I have so much to be thankful for. Most people who look at my life could easily wonder what on earth I have to be thankful for, but I assure you there are many things. I'm thankful for my husband who is willing to do anything to try and support his family in this bad economic time of our life. He amazes me at just how hard he works and I have faith that one day it will pay off. I'm so grateful for his amazing ability and willingness to be the best Daddy I know. I'm so thankful for my wonderful, silly, sometimes overwhelming kids. I can't imagine life without them. They keep me on my toes and keep me moving everyday. Because of them I am forced to better myself and find a way to be happy when things get really bad. I love watching them grow and change and interact with one another. They are my greatest joy in life.

I'm so unbelievably thankful for my Heavenly Father. I know without a doubt that my life has been enriched by Him and by the simple fact that I know He's there. It's scary to think of where we would be without His hand in our lives. He has carried me so much more than I'd like to admit. Those times I know I can't go on, I know I just need to talk to Him and he will carry me through. It may sound cheesy, but I've felt it and I know without it there's a good chance I would not be sitting here.

I'm thankful for all the normal things people are thankful for. The church, a beautiful house, friends and family, food and clothing. I may be without many things that people take for granted like a vehicle that has a seat for each of my family members or the ability to buy Christmas presents, but the 'normal' things missing in my life only strengthen my gratitude for the things that I do have. I am a very lucky person and though life is harder than it's ever been in so many ways, I don't think I've ever felt this much gratitude in my heart. Certainly not for the little things that make life possible.

Painting Time Again

I brought the paint out the week of Thanksgiving. The kids had a blast painting pictures, making hand prints, and using my stamps. It entertained them for at least an hour and I was able to get dinner made and the kitchen cleaned. I need to remember that activities like this are not only fun for the kids, but they actually create free time for me. :)

Sarah Kate painting her picture of our house.

The little girls painting in purple, they kind of like that color.

Ben was a super fast painter and within about 15 minutes he was done. He did enjoy the stamp though.

Dan really enjoys hanging out at the table with the kids. Normally he doesn't have to be doing anything, just watching everyone else. He did enjoy cleaning the table though.

More table cleaning. What a silly boy.

Turkey Fun

In trying to cut the school budget, our district has lengthened the school day which allows the kids to have more days off during the school year. So, Ben and Sarah had the entire week of Thanksgiving off this year. It was so nice to have them home. Even though things are a little crazy around our house, I'm always glad when all my kids are at home.

I wanted to take some time to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. I'm not huge fan of Thanksgiving. It seems over the years its become a holiday known as 'the day people celebrate having food by eating way to much of it' as Garfield says. It's lost that family, thankful feel for me. So, I decided to bring it back. No matter what's going on around us I've decided to remind my kids why we celebrate Thanksgiving and to give it the recognition it deserves.

It turned out to be a good thing I planned some fun indoor activities because the snow began to fall on Saturday. The snow fell and fell and fell and then the wind blew and blew and blew. Most of the other school districts in the area cancelled school, business' shut down early and we stayed in our warm little house enjoying some family time. It was nice to be snowed in with the kids. Kenny went out and worked, went grocery shopping for me because our tire is really bald and I didn't dare drive the car (not that he dared let me drive the car,) and took Hannah to speech. We missed him when he was gone, but we're grateful he was willing to work and go out in the blizzard for us.

Anyway, back to our activities. Monday night for FHE we had a night about Thanksgiving. I let Sarah Kate give the lesson on the first Thanksgiving. She loves to help out and give the lesson and she does a good job with it. I'm working with her on not talking so much, limiting her information, and basically keeping it short and simple. She could go on and on, but the others have very little attention spans. After our lesson we went to the table to make our Thankful Turkey. Each kid, who's old enough to talk, got 2 turkey feathers that they could color and label with something they're thankful for. I glued them all on a turkey body and our family Thankful Turkey was born and took his rightful place on our fridge.

Coloring our turkey feathers.

Things to be thankful for

Sarah: Indians and Pilgrims (can you tell she gave the lesson)

Ben: America and Life

Hannah: Drinks and My House

Gracie (with a little help from Ben): Food and Painting

Mom and Dad: Family

Hannah displaying her purple and pink colored feathers.

After the Thankful Turkey was made, we had some fun making some yummy cookie turkeys. Hannah brought one home from speech the week before and I thought it would be so fun to make as a family. They turned out real good and the kids had a lot of fun making them. After making a few of turkeys I let the kids go crazy making whatever they wanted while I fed the baby. They had a blast and came up with some very creative things.

Gracie's turkey cookie. She did a great job and I love her chocolaty hands.

Sarah Kate gluing her second turkey together with frosting.

Hannah proudly displaying her turkey with its wings backwards.

Ben's turkey with it's rather high wings.

Dan had fun eating chocolate cookies. He loves the flash on the camera and I snapped this after the flash went off. Then . . .

I played peek-a-boo behind the camera and this is what I got. Man I love this kid.

Ice Sledding the Driveway

After coloring the windows (see next blog), eating lunch, and putting Dan and Adam down for a nap, I decided it was time to go scrape the driveway. Why, I don't know. We live in Idaho Falls were the wind blows a lot in the winter and it was blowing snow sideways. I guess I figured I'd get a jump start on the scraping, hope the wind didn't blow the snow over my nicely scraped driveway, and allow the kids to play outside while I worked. The wind did not blow the snow over the driveway (at least not that day, over the next few days it filled in my scraped driveway very nicely) but I quickly discovered that the rain we got earlier in the morning had frozen and left the driveway a nice sheet of ice. Not the best for scrapping, but great for ice sledding.

Ben taking a turn down the driveway while Hannah helped Gracie up.

Gracie was sliding everywhere and just couldn't get her boats to stick to the driveway. Hannah was such a great big sister to her and helped her up the hill and went down with her almost every time. I was so impressed with the care she took of Gracie, I'm sure Gracie loved it as well.

Sarah started out spending some time in the backyard trying to make snow angels and eating the snow. Sounds like something I would have done as a kid.

Hannah enjoying a rare solo ride.

Gracie just after making her first solo ride. Yes, she's laughing in this picture.

Eventually Sarah came to the front and decided to join in on the sledding fun. What crazy kids I have.

Painting to Falling Snow

Decorating the back windows. I love the backdrop of beautiful white snow.

On Saturday morning the 20th I had just put the little kids in the bathtub when Ben asked if he could get out the window crayons. My first instinct was, 'Oh please, not today.' I've decided lately that I'm a grumpy, no fun, uncreative mom and that I need to change. All the kids, all the mess, all the laundry, and so on gets to me sometimes and I've gotten in the habit of letting it control me. It's been hard sometimes, but I've really tried to get those negative, it's too much work, thoughts out of my head and let the kids make messes and do more fun and creative things. So when Ben asked if he could get the window crayons out I paused, shoved the negative first instinct out of my mind, looked out the window at the barely starting to fall snow and said, 'Sure." So the kids spent a few hours in the morning decorating my back windows, all of them. They had a ton of fun and watching them color to a background of 5 inches of accumulating snow was a ton of fun for me as well. Here's some of their beautiful artwork:

Ben was, of course, the first to color the windows. He started by drawing the family. I love this picture because I love that he has his tongue stuck out in concentration.

When Sarah's out of school she likes to lay in bed and read for about an hour after getting up. When she finally came upstairs and saw Ben coloring she jumped right in and went to work.

When the little girls got out of the bathtub they helped themselves to the remaining windows (the back wall of entire living room is full of windows.) They had a lot of fun and were very proud of the scribble creations.

Hannah coloring one of our many windows. She was determined to get all the windows and even climbed on the counter to get the window over the sink.

Gracie had fun climbing on the back of the couch and coloring the windows. She did a great job and thought it was so neat that she got to color on the windows.