Anyone have a match?

My kids are SLOBS! I realize that most kids are, by nature. I think my kids are overly slobby. Maybe it's just because I hate the clutter. Maybe it's because I feel overwhelmed and their rooms are the last places I can get to.

These are pictures taken just moments ago. I'd like to light the rooms on fire and get rid of every offensive piece of laundry, toy, book, piece of garbage, etc. Unfortunately, that would get rid of the garage and eventually the van. I don't like to walk too far.

Sarah and Joseph

Guess who is two months old today?! That two months has really gone by quickly. It does pass more slowly at night. I was trying to change a diaper last night and couldn't keep my eyes open! I've fallen asleep doing a lot of things, but never changing a diaper. It was only 12:45 am or close.

But I survived, as all mothers (somehow) do. And isn't she worth it? I just took these pictures of her. I was calling her name and she was looking around for me, but I think I was still too far away to focus on. (If I get too close with the camera, the flash takes over.) She gave me a couple of half smiles and I tried to capture them.

She's survived two months. Kudos to her parents for not failing in their efforts.

These next pictures are of Joseph...well, his feet anyway. This shot is from this morning. I couldn't resist getting the camera when I noticed a size 4 sandal paired with a size 5 church shoe. Each shoe was on the wrong foot. I told him to stop so I could get a picture of his feet and he stopped to hold one up to the camera for me. I finally got him to show me both at the same time.

And this picture is nearly 12 hours later. He'd fallen asleep (finally) and I noticed his feet. At least this time he got the left church shoe on the left foot. I suppose this means he has two left feet. Apparently he has no lungs because I don't know how he's breathing under there!

Silly Joseph. He turns two in two and half weeks. He's already practicing his terrible two tantrums. He's really quite good!

Plan B

My original plan for the morning involved visiting teaching and leaving the three youngest kids in the van with a movie while I stepped inside the houses briefly. I only planned such a thing because both houses said they were harboring/recovering from illness. It is the last week of the month after all...it's now or never!

Unfortunately, a big wind storm knocked out power to some of the schools and school was cancelled for the entire district. Of course, we didn't learn this until the bus was nearly 20 minutes late, the kids had stood outside in freezing temps for 10 minutes and I called the school to ask.

SO...instead of taking kids with me to sit in the van, I gave Daniel his first official babysitting job. I made sure he knew how to call my cell phone, got a sleeping Sarah into the swing and drove to the first house, 1 minute away. I was there about 10-12 minutes and on to the next house, another minute away. I was there about 20 minutes.

When I got home, all six kids were in my room. Sarah was still in the swing and the rest of them were sitting on my bed watching Sesame Street. I asked Daniel if anyone called. He said no and then said, "You're back? You left already?"

He was babysitting and didn't even know it! I don't think we'll be going on any kid-less dates for a while yet. I probably won't even be leaving the block. But I do look forward to having built-in babysitters...several long years from now.

Going Public

I've decided to make myself more accountable for my weight loss efforts by going public. Maybe you all can encourage or chastise me...whichever is more effective (without reducing me to tears).

I weighed in at a new low (since Sarah was born) this morning, so I was motivated to start this. I will post my weight weekly over on the right side. Right there at the top. So everyone can see it and shake their heads in disappointment when appropriate. Just knowing some of you are doing that will give me the power to pass up more goodies than I have been able to lately.

And this is very timely for me since Halloween, then Thanksgiving and Christmas are looming ever so near! Yikes! It didn't help that I made what seems like a thousand sugar cookies for decorating at FHE tonight. They definitely pass the sugar cookie test. I inspected them...thoroughly.

Kids! I shake my head in confusion.

I know! It's been over a week. I'm sure 2 of you have been going through withdrawals. The rest of the readership didn't even notice.

I have things to catch up on, but right now I just have 2 short stories about my perplexing kids.

Last night at the table, Daniel convinced himself that his dinner smelled like throw up. This is usually Leah's complaint about things. Anyway, he didn't want to eat his dinner because it had eggplant in it (I don't know what's wrong with him...it's only about the 3rd time in a week that we've had eggplant in some form.) So Daniel disappears into the bathroom for a little while. When he comes back he has tissue stuffed up his nose. I guess he figured that would solve the problem. Of course, I sent him back to the bathroom to remove it and told him if he couldn't get it all out, he'd have to go to the doctor. REALLY...I've heard of young kids shoving things up their noses, but not 9-year-olds! He never did finish his dinner and didn't get any apple pie afterward.

Second story:
Leah, Rebekah and Joseph had a bath Saturday and left their dirty clothes in the middle of the bathroom floor. They were still there last night. (It's a big bathroom, so it's easy to ignore a big pile of clothes - which we do.) This morning I was going to rescue Leah's pants from the pile because I didn't figure they were very dirty. I went into the bathroom and couldn't find the pile. I thought Chad must have gathered them up and put them in the washer, so I gave up my rescue effort. Later this morning, as I was getting clothes for Joseph, I started pulling out clothes that didn't belong...his sisters' dirty underwear was the most obvious. Apparently, Joseph stuffed them all into his drawer (his room is across the hall from the bathroom) during his 90 minutes of refusing to stay in bed and go to sleep. It was a little mind exercise trying to remember what all 3 of them were wearing Saturday to be sure I got it all out of the drawer again. Maybe I need to point out the washing machine to Joseph.

Sarah's Blessing

It's been almost a week and I haven't even posted about Sarah's blessing yet. Where are my proud mommy manners?


The blessing went really well. I only had a chance to give Sarah half of her 2nd breakfast, but she ended up handling all the loving and the blessing itself without crying.


Chad did a great job with the blessing. Sarah had 2 grandpas in the circle with her daddy and a member of the bishopric. A very nice family in the ward handed us a copy of what they were able to write down of the blessing. The rest of the kids will have to assume that their blessings were similar...no copies of those!


We got some cute pictures of her and some with our family.


Dress and afghan


Looking to the right. Here you can really see her cheeks! :)

Looking to the left and right into the camera. Such a sweet face!

This is when she let us know she was done. Still a sweet face...in a different sort of way!

And here is our family shot. Can't get Chad to keep his eyes open. We took 5 pictures...someone should have pinched him on "3." Rebekah had thrown a fit just before the pictures (of course), so she's looking chipper.
"Are they all yours?" Yes...that's why I'm yelling at them and calling them by name! :) We get that question a lot. I always think of the best lines when it's too late. Still, they are a handsome little bunch of kids. I guess we'll keep them.

Welcome to the family, Sarah. You'll get used to being here. ;)

Robber or not?

I just found this news story online. (Apparently, you can find the original here, but I didn't see it in the first few minutes of searching.) This copy is from the AP.

Robber loses wallet, then asks victim to return it

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Police said a would-be robber was in jail after losing his wallet during the attempted robbery then phoning the victim and asking for it to be returned. Little Rock police said the 23-year-old man was arrested on robbery charges Tuesday.

Police said the man tried to rob a man at gunpoint at his home but fled and dropped his wallet then later called and told the man to return the wallet at a service station in North Little Rock.

Little Rock police were interviewing the victim when the call came and notified North Little Rock police who found the suspect outside the service station and arrested him after a short foot chase.

What I'm wondering is, why didn't the robber return and steal his wallet back? He didn't bother to ask for something that wasn't his in the first place. Why ask for something that is? If I were an Arkansas tax payer, I wouldn't be happy that my tax money was being spent on him! ;)

Percentages

Sarah says "hi." She's in my lap, as usual. She's not nursing this exact moment, but I'm sure it won't be too long. If she's awake, she's hungry. But you should see the cute double chin she has at 6 weeks, 6 days. And her legs have several creases. Now, if I could just get her to stop trying to leap from my lap, I'd be a better typist.

And all this brings me to the point of my post. While I was feeding her after our nap, I was thinking that I spend an awful lot of time (it's not ALL awful) taking care of this tiny creature. I'd guess about 80% of the day is Sarah's. How is that fair to the other kids? I decided they probably get about 50% of the day.

I'm no math whiz, but I'm able to add percentages. It would seem that 130% of the day is for the kids. Luckily, I can multitask because there's no way I'm really giving 130%. My guilt meter actually reads about a 60% effort. I'm very grateful for Chad. He takes a lot of the burden when he gets home. And because of that, I only blow my top about 30% of the time.

"Go Fetch!"

The sound of "Go fetch" fills the background of my morning while I finish up my bowl of oatmeal and clear cereal boxes from the table. Rebekah is repeating the command over and over and over again.

As I'm scooping up soggy cereal from the table and clearing abandoned bowls, I look up. My mind now registers what it's been hearing for the past couple of minutes.

Rebekah is throwing pieces of homemade wheat bread around the living room and Joseph is gathering them up. He likes bread. They are both happy. And now they both get to gather bread from my living room carpet.

*sigh*

New Blog Address

If you're reading this, you've got the new address! If you're reading this 3 months late because you finally learned the new address...sorry. But I did try to get everyone notified and not a lot of people sent in their e-mail addresses.


The address comes from a favorite poem of mine. I thought seeing the address often might inspire me to be better. (I am in need of some good, constant inspiration.)

The title: Sixlets - All underfoot, came from my current state of overwhelming mommy responsibilities. It was kind of a quick thought that I just typed. The address and title should probably be the same, to avoid confusion, but that would go against everything else "normal" in my life.


Glad you're still following along with me.

Fast Food

This is an update on the mouse in our van.

It seems the mouse wasn't actually living in the van, but rather stopping by for the gourmet offering of crumbs and goodies we'd generously left for it. Did you know that cars/vans/trucks, etc. are not mouse proof? We didn't.

Considering the area we live in (ripe with field mice), it is no surprise that we'd been found out by the local vermin. Now I just wonder...how long have they been rating us in Zagat? We must have been like a 5 star restaurant for these guys! I am the type to need motivation to clean. I think I've found the ultimate motivator.

So now, the van is crumb-free (if you don't count the stuff embedded in Joseph's car seat) and we haven't eaten in it yet. I know that won't always be the case, so I'll have to be more vigilant with the vacuum. Darn it.

Ultimately, I'd like to catch the mouse that's on to us. We've set various traps. He's very good at getting what he wants and escaping the trap. What are those 7 cats good for, anyway?

why,Why, WHY???

Why do kids stand RIGHT IN FRONT of you when you're trying to walk?

AND - When do they stop doing it?

It does not matter when or where or what time of day, my kids have me blocked. It was bad when I was pregnant and couldn't see the littlest attackers. Now that I'm only fat, but carrying a baby, it seems worse. Maybe it's because I don't have any hands available to break my fall.

And it doesn't matter that I try to anticipate the problem and change direction; they read my mind and alter course, too.

Of course, it's my fault that they're knocked to the ground.

For some people, it's only a matter of quickly lifting a leg and stepping over the child. Unfortunately, they'd have to prostrate on the ground before my leg could clear their head. And then I'd likely just be off-balance and step on them anyway.

Sometimes I've had to give a firm nudge to the side, and other times I've completely lifted them off the ground and set them somewhere less invasive. Some of them have learned to run. I'm only waiting (though not patiently) for them to take a little step right or left.

Hitchhiker and Anatomically Incorrect

This is two posts in one because my oatmeal is getting cold and I wanted to post before I forgot details.

First off, I noticed quite a bit of paper shreds in our van today as I climbed in to take Daniel to the TMJ specialist. (It went well and Daniel is hoping the pain will subside soon.) Things only get shredded in that fashion by one creature. The droppings confirmed it...there is a mouse somewhere in our van!

Eww! But I didn't have time to search, so it got a ride to and from the Dr's. Each way is 30 minutes on the freeway. And I know it went to the church with me last night. I don't know how long it's been in there. We drove 30+ minutes the other way for groceries yesterday morning. It was probably in there then, too.

Now, the van is sitting in the driveway with both side doors open. The kids are cleaning out garbage. We'll have to remove car seats and floor mats and get the vacuum out there (then change the vacuum bag)!

UPDATE: The van has been cleaned out. The garbage (bags of it - the kids kept kicking it under the seats) is out, the car seats have been removed and the entire van vacuumed. Leah is now vacuuming the last floor mats. Reuseable shopping bags, towels that are supposed to be under the car seats (but rarely are), a blanket and a hoodie are now in the washer.

That mouse had been there a while. There were little dropping and paper shreds throughout the van...including the glove box. Is nothing sacred? I even vacuumed little black poops out of the tracks for the sliding doors.

I vacuumed out Joseph's car seat and checked everyone else's. The van is as clean as I could get it without shampooing the carpet or washing hard surfaces (I can't do everything; I'm only one woman!). I even checked under the hood, but saw nothing suspect there. That would mean more if I was qualified to examine that type of thing.

Now, we're not neat freaks, but we're not that bad! I've never seen such a thing...and I've seen a lot. I never saw the actual offender, so I don't even know if it's gone. We'll have to put a 5 gal. bucket in there tonight with a little yummy in the bottom. We've learned that mice can't get out of buckets. The thought of the kids eating the banana chips after they got dumped on the floor of the van yesterday just makes me shudder. No wonder we're fighting nasty germs! We're probably all suffering from Hantavirus!

Second post: The kids were cracking and eating peanuts in the kitchen while I made my lunch. Nathan was having a hard time getting one cracked open, so he decided to sit on it. My first knowledge of this was upon hearing Daniel say, "Nathan's sitting on his peanut!" My mind skipped ahead of Daniel a little and I SO thought he was going to say something else!

Lefty

I asked Daniel if he wanted to open the cans as I made dinner tonight. He was quite excited to do it. I handed him the can opener and left the room for a bit. When I came back, I noticed that he had taken the entire tops off three cans with the can opener! I asked him to show me how he'd done it.

This is when he picked up the can open in his left hand and placed it OVER the lip of the can, instead of to the SIDE. It never even occurred to me that the appliance would work that way.

Do they even make left-handed can openers?



The can looses a lot of its strength when the entire rim is removed...it squeezes very easily. I'm sure there is a great physics lesson in there.

I didn't realize that my oldest son didn't know how to use a can opener. I wonder what else he needs to learn?

Rebekah and Joseph had to help stir the dinner. Awesome teamwork!

Increased Security

You may have noticed I changed the title of my blog. I'm trying to make us a little more anonymous online. Along with some other Settings changes that I've already made, I'm also changing the address of the blog.

Because I'm not trying to get rid of any current readers, I'll send you the new address, if you let me know you want it. Please send your request via email or give me your email in the comments - I'll delete it as soon as I get it. If for some reason you don't want me to know that you've been reading my blog (some people really enjoy their ability to be invisible), feel free to get the address from someone else - if you can. And I don't care if you share the address with others, I'm just trying to be less available to the predators of the world.

This may be a wasted effort, since I don't use nicknames for anyone in the family and post I their adorable faces all over the place, but I'm trying to avoid using last names and city names. I am the only one with my name in the entire country...can you believe it? Such individuality. (That sounds weird. Is it really a word? Must be...spell check didn't flag it.)

So, sorry for the inconvenience. I'm just trying to keep my family a little safer, despite all the info I share in nearly every post! :)

New Header

I thought I'd create a festive blog header since my sick baby is having trouble sleeping.

Not my first choice for something to do at 12:45 AM, but it was a little fun.

Did it surprise you when you first saw the page? I'll probably be surprised myself until at least the middle of the month.

Sick Six

All six kids are sick, as of the middle of the night. We are not throwing up, but have some sore throats and some REALLY runny noses. (My apologies to anyone we have infected. I did not know we were so generous with our germs.)

I feel bad for sick kids, but my heart really breaks for sick babies. Sarah sounds like she's trying to breathe under water. I've sucked out quite a bit of mucus. Her coughs seem to choke her. But once in a while, she smiles in spite of it all.

Even Chad is sick. It was my turn last week, but now I'm the only one who isn't sick. I hope this isn't one of those germs that mutates and makes a second pass.

Getting Married

A conversation Rebekah and I had while in the car together the other day:

R: When I get married, I'm going to get married to a very special boy.
Me, eyebrows raised: That's right! Did you talk about getting married in church?
R: No. I'm going to get married in the temple!

She also expects that Daniel will marry a very special girl when he gets married. (He didn't like us talking about that.) Someone has been talking about marriage with this girl. Maybe Grandma? Maybe she came up with it on her own. She does surprise us once in a while.

Cat Flavored?

Winter has begun to creep in. We've been below freezing several nights now. I think the momma cat even took her kittens somewhere warmer. (Don't know where that is, really.) So colder temps mean less bugs.

When I stepped out to dump some cat food out for the cats, Sticky Feet (our free roaming rooster) came running from the garden at the back of the yard. He stepped right up to the food dish, causing our biggest cat to back off.

As a cat, it must be really offensive to have what would naturally be breakfast, end up eating your breakfast!

And I've been wondering...if a chicken eats cat food, does he end up "cat flavored"? I hope it doesn't work that way, because he could also be "grasshopper flavored". A delicacy in some countries, but really very gross.