Sit Jason!

Monday or Tuesday of this past week I realized that Jason should be sitting on his own by now.  I obviously hold him all the time because I didn't realize that he actually could sit on his own.  I just want him to be a baby forever...

... little cutie! He went from falling over every few seconds to sitting unassisted for several minutes at a time within a day or two!  Now I plop him down with someone to entertain him so I can get real work done.  Only he figured that out, so now when I put him on the floor to sit, he cries.  He is so happy just to lounge around on my lap or have me haul him around while I do things.  But some things require two hands and sometimes I don't want him reaching for and grabbing what I'm trying to do.

Standing at Trot

Genevieve is improving in leaps and bounds at vaulting.  She comes home, starry eyed and pink cheeked, bursting with her accomplishments. Tonight I got to drop her off and lingered long enough to get a few pictures... She is now doing her routines at TROT.  This is bouncy!

Now you may see a ten year old girl, full of confidence.  But I see:

MY BABY! Standing! She's balancing! She might fall! Quick, take pictures!

Oh, and guess what.... guess, guess, what??? She will probably be going up to Lynden the first weekend of April for competitions!  Lynden, people! That means... YOU get to come see her too!

So far...

...this year we:

• discovered a great leak in the roof
• repaired the hole in the bathroom floor (again)
• replaced the tires on the Honda
• replaced the headlights too
• had to pay our YMCA membership when we really shouldn't pay at all
• burnt a hole in a pair of wool pants I had just finished
• buried half the ducks
• set out rodent poison after mousopolis was discovered in the well house 
• cleaned cat poop out of my van after someone shut her in there
• saw my son lose the election for Assistant Senior Patrol Leader to a punk that was observed buying votes from the other scouts
• patched a hole in Kai's chest

Why would over 20 stitches (plus more internally) on a dog cost $700 when Lula's four chin stitches cost $4000?

Still left to do:

• Fix the doorknob Kai chewed off trying to get out of his isolation chamber
• Clean up the three piles of barf he just left on the carpet (nevermind, he did it himself)
• Homeschool
• Laundry
• Find the missing Pokemon DVD that needs to go back to the library

I'm feeling a bit like The Incredibles at the end of the movie when they stand up and look around at the damage around them but their whole family is there and safe.  We are all here, working as a team.  The boys made breakfast this morning. Ian knows that elections (both in his peer group and the real world) are based on personality and cheating, not what is best for the troop/country.  We are all determined to get our hobby farm up and running again. I am excited to reclaim shopping and menu planning from Mark and having the kids learn how to cook in exchange for me doing the dishes for them.

Life is good.

God always keeps his promises.

Jason's First Food

Gotta love the first food pics.

"Yes! I've been watching The Others do this. I can't wait to try it too!"

"Mm, not quite what I was expecting, but okay. I can do this."

"What the heck is this anyway?" (Avocado)

"Oh, sick! Avocado? I hate avocado!"

"I mean, gross! Do you know how much fat is in avocado?" (It's the good kind of fat honey)

"Okay, I can do this...."

"Oh, wait, no I can't... *dry heave noises*

"Alright, where can I spit this thing out?"

And thanks to Genevieve for being my photographer.  She has quickly become my other half and steps in to help me out whenever needed.  What a blessing :) 

A New Normal

So, I got a job.  I work two days a week out at my parent's house.  I won't bore anyone with the details, but my job involves taking orders and shipping them and some light bookkeeping.  The funny part about this is that when I first graduated from high school, I was going to major in business.  There is always a job for someone with a business degree.  But it was so. boring. My environmental science class was way more fun plus we got to go on field trips all the time.  So I majored in fun. And almost every job I've had since graduating for college was business-based (except the one that got me married to my boss-haha).

Jason likes to watch the various birds out the window.

Ian stays home and enjoys the peace and quiet of the house while we are gone, although I'm pretty sure he blasts the music. He is, after all, his father's son.  I don't know if I ever blogged about his school year.  He is doing US History/Literature and Algebra 2 here at home and is taking both writing and science outside the home once a week. With a real teacher that gives grades!  His favorite part is the break between classes when he tosses the football around with the other guys, which he considers his PE. No official school would ever accept that as physical education, but whatever. We homeschool (for now) so we can do what we want (haha).

Too bad we had an illness (flu maybe?) that wiped out half the ducks (sad face)

I'm not sure how the job is going to impact the way I homeschool the rest of the kids.  I am super blessed that I can take the kids with me and that they can work on their schoolwork there. Plus, my parents are there, so they get to spend time with the grandkids every week and can even help out on school.  It really is a great opportunity, especially now that the roof has started leaking badly and needs to be replaced.  But my homeschool style and plans for the year were/are very me-involved: me sitting with my nursing baby reading out loud to everyone with oral discussion afterward.  So far we are digging the books on CD/MP3 in the van and playing Mad Libs.

I'm sure if the boys hadn't had broken my favorite coffee mug last night, I would be feeling excited about finding new ways to homeschool and new curricula to spend my paycheck on.  Check back with me in a week, okay?

Target Met

Aw, who am I kidding? I love a good shopping with toddlers story.  If I had more readers, which I don't really want, I could write a huge sponsored post on 10 Tricks for Shopping with Toddlers or something.  I can see Buzz Feed or some other page sharing it now. Click Bait is what I call those articles.  I'm so guilty of clicking on all of them. I don't know why; I can't help it. They aren't helpful; they just want likes and clicks so they can get more sponsors.

Shopping with Toddlers: Nailed it!

Here are a few things I do to prepare myself for a trip to Target with my B Team:

• Wear my boots. They mean business. No one better mess with me when I have my boots on.
• Eat. Preferably something with fat and lots of staying power. Nothing causes a toddler shopping trip to fail faster than a mom having a sugar crash.
• Go potty before I leave the house. Duh. Who wants to take three little kids into a public bathroom? From having them crawl on the floor under the wall dividers to shouting embarrassing things for others to hear, yeah, we don't do that.  Unless we are potty training.
• All bets are off when a child is potty training.  There is nothing quite like a toddler who has to go potty, but is scared to use a public toilet ("Take me to my home potty!" is what I heard today). Those automatic flushers are the devil and have caused months of potty training regression.
• Keep the list short. Short enough to memorize. The gas for a return trip is worth not breaking down sobbing in public.
• When I first park my van, I just sit in my seat and make sure I have just the essentials to get me through the store. No extras. One diaper, one set of wipes, a wallet, a phone, and a list just in case my memory blanks. Everything else stays in the van. I leave everyone buckled and get a cart and bring it to the van. I load the baby first because he is the least likely to jump out of the cart and run into traffic.  Heidi is second because she sits in the cart and can be restrained with a seat belt.  Lula is last.  
• In the store we move according to our plan, but make time for side trips.  Lula really needs lots of conversation to help her develop her speaking skills.  We spent a lot of time talking about what we saw today.
• Snacks: always buy one. Always. They have something to look forward to and something to fear losing if they misbehave.  But don't pick it out too early in the trip because they may just freak out because they don't understand the concept of purchasing the treat before consuming it.  
• And back into the parking lot is when I have Lula put her hand flat on the Target emblem on the cart.  This gives her an anchor so she doesn't go dashing off into traffic when a car scares her.
• I have my snack (fresh fruit-yummo!) before I drive so I can concentrate on not listening to everyone cry about getting kicked by a sister and dropped binkies and being stuck in a hot sweater in a car seat for two hours while I drive the last hour home.

The B Team has dish duty on Tuesday nights. We also mop for obvious reasons.

This is all just for entertainment purposes of course. I know I'm not the expert at toddler wrangling considering the numerous toddler melt downs I've dealt with.  As my B Team becomes my primary focus and I start teaching them skills that I taught the A Team years ago (see? we've been hand washing dishes forever!) I really start to enjoy these guys and their wild ways.  After Daniel and Lula burned out on dishes and Jason burned out on the bouncy chair, we all went to play Minecraft together instead of just watching a movie like we normally do.

The B Team and I had a good day. (Except for all the crying that happened between Target and Minecraft)

A New Year Begins

Tomorrow we start school again.

We also had a family meeting about teamwork today.  We talked about goals, objectives, and strategies.  We talked about chores and schoolwork and running the household better.

This is a common theme in the blogging world right now.  I see a blog post come up on Facebook and I'm like, "Hey, cool, a post about planning a homeschool routine with a large family! I need to check that out!"  But when I started reading, I'm so disappointed. The writer has only four kids and only one of them is actually doing real schoolwork.  I've reached a point where no blog can save me; I have to save myself.

One of my goals for this year is to blog more and Facebook less.  I don't really like blogging, did you know? The fun of telling stories has kind of worn out. Same story, different kid, kicking and screaming, cool school projects blah, blah, blah.  But I'll do it so that one day the kids can come back and read their stories.

Daniel really enjoyed the sunbeam that peeked through the curtain the other day.  He is such a boy.

Ice

A week or two of heavy rain followed by below-freezing temperatures created quite the ice rink in our pasture.

The middle kids played and slid and skated.  The dogs followed to the edge of the ice and had to be encouraged to join the fun.

Once Jack found out he was allowed out on the ice, he got quite frisky! Jack is my kind of dog.  He mostly just wants to sit in the sun outside and is frisky for about five tosses of the stick.  Then he is ready to go patrol the woods again.

He loved chasing chunks of ice.

Sliding was all fun and games until Shane scared Daniel by breaking through some ice.  Daniel tried to run away, but he slipped and bumped his head.

 They were ready for hot cocoa shortly after.  (Daniel's head is just fine. He is mostly mad that I took his picture and he will be really mad when he finds out I posted it)