Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas!

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Joshua's Dirty Feet

Joshua seems to always have dirty feet. He goes barefoot most all the time and since he is in constant motion, this leads to having dirty feet. Even in the portraits we had made he had dirty feet (although I didn't realize it until later). The other night I was in enrichment meeting at church and Joshua got away from the nursery sitters and made his way to me. He was squirmy and wanted to play. He was certainly distracting to me, probably to others. I noticed how his feet were dirty and was instantly embarrassed that my boy wasn't cleaned up. That is until I thought about the sister who was sitting next to me. You see she has a son. He is about 20 or so now and has been bound to a wheelchair with severe cerebral palsy his whole life. I bet she would give anything if her boy had dirty feet. All of the sudden I remembered the late Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin's advice in conference: "Come what may and love it".
Thank goodness for Joshua's dirty feet.

Further Proof That I Am, in Fact, a Terrible Mother

My son has become an addict of tootsie rolls, mostly because they are the candy now in plentious supply at our house since I bought a 50 pound bag after halloween for 25 cents. He grabs a huge handful every time my back is turned and then finds a corner to scarf them down.

Well, this morning he recruited his baby sister into the plot. My sister asked me if she was allowed to eat them... I explained that no, tootsie rolls are not on my 11 month old's diet plan, but that she was cheating.

Later, he was playing with the very safe metal tape measure. The picture explains the results. Should I call Children Services on myself?

tomorrow's memories

There are moments as I raise these children that it hits me how much they are growing, how fast it is passing, and that today will soon be a memory. It happens when I see my daughters wearing makeup and going out with friends. It happens when I see my baby girl walking. It even happens with people other than my children. Moments with my parents seem to be more and more precious because they won't always be here. One day I know I will miss them desperately. It happened when I saw my nephew driving my Daddy's car. It happened last night as I watched my son playing in the tub. He looked so tall and loved swimming and floating in the tub. When he was brand new he was so fussy and giving him a bath would calm him right down. He loved having his hair washed and splashing in the water. My little baby boy is now getting to be a big boy.
Today is so busy, I rush rush rush all the time. I keep reminding myself that today is the day to love. I will miss it one day.

Two peas in a pod? No way!

As I sit here I am being subjected to my husband's HORRIBLE taste in music. How, you might ask, do two people who are so different share a home, much less a bedroom? To be honest, the only thing I can figure is that our faith is our glue. He loves to go see movies at the theater, I barely want to watch them at home. He likes music such as "Supertramp" and other irritating things, I either like quiet or Beethoven. He is addicted to a t.v. remote, I could read a book all day. He loves the great outdoors, I believe nature is dirty. Not to mention that he is a native Alaskan and I am a Georgian.
Go figure.

Lizzie Sayings

• "I wish I was old... you know, like 20."

• "Diarrhea would be a pretty name if it wasn't poop."

• "I wish I was chinese... (why? I ask)
  Because they have good food."

Reflections

I sent an email out about it but I just can't say enough. If you haven't looked at the video I posted at the bottom of this page, do. It is amazing and touching and I love it. I want to share it with everyone. I also want to hear what everyone thinks about it.
much love,
sha

Joshua strikes again!

I have been in a panic for several days, ever since I lost my two flash drives. One contains all my genealogy, the other contains all my school work including projects... both of these are critical to me. I looked everywhere, I prayed, I searched, I begged my family to help in my endeavor. I even bribed some. Desperate much?

I got a text message from my oldest today. The flash drives have been located! Yahooooooooo!!!!!! Where were they, you ask?

Hanging around Joshua's rocky horse's neck.

Our new family picture

My plans to take our family picture on the beach last month were thwarted by a hurricane. My followup plan was to do it at the reunion but between drizzly rain all weekend and a big lunch that required a long nap Saturday, that plan was squashed. Finally, when we were at Julie's I found a green area and told everybody to stand still. This was the result.

Nap time

I envy mothers that have this on a regular basis. I will never forget my sister, Julie, telling me about her two children sleeping each day for three hours for naps and then going to bed by 8. I think drugs must have been involved. Out of my 5 children, 3 have been decent nappers. The other two do not require sleep. Even now, my oldest child requires less sleep than anyone in the house. She is the first up every morning and plays the drill seargent waking everyone up, including her mother who she drags out of bed promptly at 6:15 so I can become barely decent enough to stumble to the car to take her to seminary. Fortunately, she now has her learners permit and she drives to the church. Fear is an effective alternative to coffee.

The next sleepless child is my son. I could stop there and anyone that knows him could fill in the blanks with their knowledge of him. For those that are less aquainted with him, he is the epitome of boy. No, the epitome of a wild child, or a child raised by wolves. To illustrate my point, I will describe naptime antics from today. Since my almost 10 month old decided it was playtime at 1:30 this morning, I was rather tired and thrilled when naptime for my son came and she was sleeping also. I took my darling boy to the other room, far enough away from the baby that her restful slumber would be undisturbed. He and I snuggled up, going through our usual sleepy routine: A.B.C. COOKIE MONSTER song, 123 little indians, 5 little squirells, I am a child of God, etc. Finally for the good snooze. Squirmy squirmy squirmy.... I got sleepier and sleepier, then I felt a tickle on my lips... my son was applying some of my older daughter's lipstick to my lips to match what he had already applied to his. So, I threatened his life, and told him to lay down. This continued until my cell phone rang. It was a friend talking about school and while I was talking to her I realized my son's new activity. He had found my daughter's removeable bra strap, looped it around the top bunk's bar and was bungee jumping off the bed. That was it. Naptime was at an end and I had a new idea for a blog post.

Alone? Alone???

How, you might ask, could a mother of 5 have the evening alone? All the stars are appropriately aligned tonight because it has happened... sort of. You see, originally I was going on the much anticipated annual girl scout camping trip with my 11 year old. Fortunately.. um... I mean UNfortunately, my dear husband has to work the evening shift tonight, my teenagers have an engagement they simply could NOT miss, and so, I will graciously offer my babysitting services to myself and care for these poor abandoned babies that I call my own. These two little children happen to have missed naps this afternoon so bedtime is RAPIDLY approaching and after that... VIOLA! Alone! MWAHAHAHAHA (yes, that is maniacal laughter) Now don't judge me! I plan to work on school work... seriously, I haven't been on facebook in days. Well, I also may catch up on reading a few choice blogs.
So, off to the chore of wearing out... I mean playing with my little children....

Portraits today!!

Midnight Faffy Thief

When my son was born, he was fussy. No, he was a pill. When he was a couple of months old my Mom decided to encourage him to use a pacifier. If you know my Mom you know she can be persuasive and she talked him into it. Since then pacifiers have been his one true love. He is now 2 1/2 and seems to be a bit more agreeable to giving up the vice so we have been trying to keep his mind off it. Our baby girl is only 9 months old so she is using a pacifier regularly now. The last couple of nights she has been fussy and running a low grade temperature so she has been restless. Last night after waking up and taking a bottle, I wanted to lay her back down and get some much needed rest myself. I felt around on the bed in my dark room and could not relocate the pink passy anywhere. I finally coaxed my darling girl back to sleep without her pacifier and layed down next my little son to sleep another hour or two. Guess what was in my little sleeping son's mouth. The little pink passy.

Taking the plunge

After much fasting and prayer, I have decided to homeschool Elizabeth. Some are very excited about this and supportive, others have been a bit... reserved about their excitement. However, I have not taken this decision lightly and after being directed quite clearly by the spirit in this direction, I have decided to do the Lord's will and educate this child for the rest of the school year. One great blessing has been her acceptance into the K12 program which is a state funded program that uses the same materials as the public school system. It has online classes and online teachers. This is truly an answer to prayers since the K12 program was closed for the school year for enrollment and suddenly had an "unexpected" opening for additional students. We got the call this morning that she was accepted. Hooray for prayer, and hooray for a loving Father in Heaven.
Much love to all,
sha

p.s. for any concerned, the picture in my previous blog was sent to me via email and was thankfully not my children or my stuff. xoxo

Raising a boy

Wow! That is the best way to describe it. Having four other children, all girls, three of them older, it is a shock to me just how challenging it is to try to raise a son. I think of people who have all or mostly boys and I take my hat off to them. My boy is something else. I remember going to the doctor's office with my little girls. I had trained them well. They were to sit quietly and read a book (from home... eww, no doctor office germ ridden books!) while waiting to be called back. Do you think my son does this? HA!! Not a chance. I am lucky if I can keep him in the room with me. When I take him to the doctor (or anywhere for that matter) I can't take the baby too. He is enough work for a full time caretaker. Out of control? Maybe so.
When my cousin and his family came for a visit at Independence day, all three boys were pretty wild and my cousin and his wife are probably the best parents I have ever known, so when people say "it's because he's a boy" I think (I hope) they may be right.

Wow! My first tag!

I've been tagged! The Rules are... tell about 6 quirks of yours and then Tag 6 fellow bloggers to do the same, be sure to leave a comment to let them know.

1. I can't stand to touch grocery carts. Or gas nozzles... it just seems too ick. All I can think about is some disgusting guy who just went to the bathroom without washing his hands touching the cart or nozzle... I also must use paper to turn on and off the public sinks in bathrooms and to open the doors to go out of said bathrooms. Too many non handwashers around.

2. I love lists. If I have a list I know I will get things done. Each time I had a child I never packed ahead of time.. I just had a list of what to take. It drove my mom nuts but it works for me. Lists work great for housework, homework, anything. I love marking off things.

3. I wear flip flops in the shower. I just can't bring myself to stand on tub floors... Doesn't matter if I just cleaned the tub, I still wear flip flops.

4. I refuse to buy tupperware (or whatever). I figure we use enough butter, sour cream, whatever, that come in free plastic containers to keep us up with enough storage containers.

5. I love office supplies. There isn't much I like better than to get pretty, new school or office supplies.

6. I hate call waiting. Not that I don't have it, I do, but I feel so guilty asking someone to hold on while I take another call. I have considered dropping the service but I can't stand the thought of missing an important call.

so there!

slacker, I am

When my older girls were little I made them each a homemade quilt each year for Christmas. Don't get me wrong, they were sometimes (oftentimes) very simple things, tied, whatever. Some were more fancy, but they progressed as my ability and creativity grew. The last quilt I made was probably my son's baby quilt. That was 2 1/2 years ago. I would love to get back to that tradition this Christmas but with school full time and everything that goes along with a large family, I will be lucky to send out Christmas cards.
One tradition I have kept up every year since the girls were born is buying or making them each an ornament each year. The idea is to have keepsakes for Christmas and when they leave home they will have a little set of ornaments. This is probably going to be funny since some of their recent ornaments have had to do with their current interests (High School Musical, etc.) This year I am undecided as to what to look for for each person. Maybe a cellphone ornament, Twilight ornament, clarinet ornament, horse ornament, and a crawling baby ornament. Hrmm....

skip this, choose another

If you haven't read it yet, and you are a mother (or maybe not), go to the meanest mom blog and read it every day. It is hilarious. I love it every time I read it.
Today was daughter 3's birthday. She and her oldest sister invited friends over so I have been in minor meltdown mode for most of the afternoon.. but it is bedtime now so life is good. I burnt the birthday cake and there wasn't enough icing in the container (yes it was a new container) to cover that up. No one seemed to care.
Tomorrow instead of the waterpark (thunderstorms are predicted), we are going bowling (oh yes, my germaphobe issues are kicking in the anxiety overtime), then to lunch, then to the dollar ($2.50) movie (more germ issues). Planning to leave the littlest people behind and the oldest is going to a church activity... we'll see if it goes well... it will.
Wow, this was dull, really, go read another blog.

Wow! the pressure!

No, not the pressure of a large family, school, home, etc, but the pressure of a first blog. What is exciting enough in my life to write about?? Do I list my usual complaints or do I rejoice in my successes? I have no clue. So, I will just tell about my day. I went to school this morning after dropping off my two littlest babies with my good parents and picked up my 2nd child from school after her begging me via text message to come get her due to her terrible and failing health... hrmm... reminds me of yesterday when I received similar texts from her older sister describing an unrelenting and debilitating cough that was causing her extreme discomfort and possible future paralysis. Obviously, being the attentive (and gullible) mother that I am, I picked up my oldest sufferer yesterday and her miraculous recovery was immediate. Amazing what healing powers I posses . So, again, I picked up a child from school today, and took her with me to my school. I took her to the library and got her a snack while I attended classes. Between classes we grabbed some lunch at Golden Corral and went to Wal-Mart where I picked up a few things we needed and got her hair cut. This was quite brave since the last time we got her hair cut at a Wal-Mart salon she ended up wearing a bag over her head for 2 1/2 months. She turned out adorable, no surprise there since she is naturally lovely.
After classes, we rode home listening to some of her favorite music. Upon arrival, we were greeted through the window from a very attractive two-year-old boy who seemed to be genuinely happy we were home. My dear husband had prepared supper (doesn't matter what it was, no one would consider it gourmet but I am so glad he fed them something that didn't come from McDonald's.) Somehow scripture study didn't happen tonight... but we did get to the store to pick up birthday supplies for Miss I am turning 11 years old tomorrow.
The baby is now fussing, and hopefully it is a sleepy cry. Goodnight!!