Christmas aftermath December 27, 2006

I love Christmas but not dealing with the afterwards. Now with three kids and three HUGE piles of presents – now comes the fun part of taking it out of the box (at least 5 minutes of twisting or turning ties) and putting it away. Now I know I should count my blessings that the kids are still young and not asking for the expensive Ipods, cell phones, DVD players and all that fun stuff. But they have HUGE toys with lots of little parts. So not only do I need to find space to put these things but also find storage for the tiny parts all in one area so the toy does not get forgotten about.

I am finding that as I get older I really cannot live in clutter. So while my house looks like Christmas threw up everywhere – my stress level is elevated because I cannot even sit on any of my couches. Once they get cleaned off – then comes the weeks of living with big cardboard boxes cluttering my garage because there is only so much the garbage man can take.

I am done complaining of that.

I tried some new recipes for this Christmas season. They are:

Pumpkin Pie cake (good but really sweet)
Soda Cracker Almond Roca (yummy)
Banana Sour cream bread (the best bread recipe you will ever taste)
Pumpkin bread (a close second to the above)

I also received several cookbooks so I will let you know what I try out of those. When Jon gets home from seeing Arlen – I will have him help me link the recipes.

I hope you all had a great Christmas. I hope you had fun spending time with your family and friends. Happy birthday to Jesus! I will try to remember to be thankful for all that I have as I try to put it all away!

Happy birthday to my two favorite boys! December 20, 2006

Wishing Jon and Seth a happy birthday! Seth turned 7 on the 18th and Jon is turning 35 on Friday the 22nd!

Girl’s post December 8, 2006

Boys you have been warned if you continue…

This week I have been watching some older kids that live down the street from us. It has been pretty fun except when it came to homework for three kids. Then I saw into my future what was coming. 🙂

Anyways, these kids talked my head off about junior high life and everything. The girl I was watching was in 6th grade. She was telling me lots of boy stuff. In the middle of that conversation, she whispers to me, “I became a woman.” I instantly freak out internally. My mind went to the sex talk and what to do. (I have not had to deal with that yet – you see) So I said, “What?” She says it again.

I have no idea what to do. I want to be that cool confindant that all the experts say older kids should have but also want to be respectful of her mom and my Christian beliefs. So I decide to play dumb. “What do you mean?” She said, “I started my period.” “Oh.” I stammer out. I give an audible outward exhale. And then in all my inifite wisdom I say, “Uh, you know about that stuff right?” She says she does.

Boy, I think I rated worse than my father on that one. I seriously had no idea how to handle that. That was a wake up call – I need to practice keeping my cool.

Later I started thinking about when I would say I became a woman. I do not think it was the day I started my period – I was way too young. It would probably be the day I had my first baby and realized I was going to be responsible for someone other than myself.

So, I am done watching the kids for the week. The mom told me the kids had lots of fun and she would use me again when the next time their regular sitter was on vacation. So I can continue to gets lots of practice for when my kids come to me with that stuff. 🙂