Night Before Christmas For Moms (author unknown)

Twas the night before Christmas, when all thru the abode
only one creature was stirring, and she was cleaning the commode.
The children were finally sleeping, all snug in their beds,
while visions of Nintendo 64 and Barbie, flipped through their heads.
The dad was snoring in front of the TV,
with a half-constructed bicycle on his knee.
So only the mom heard the reindeer hooves clatter,
which made her sigh, "Now what's the matter?"
With toilet bowl brush still clutched in her hand,
she descended the stairs, and saw the old man.
He was covered with ashes and soot, which fell with a shrug.
"Oh great," muttered the mom, "Now I have to clean the rug."
"Ho-ho-ho!" cried Santa, "I'm glad you're awake."
"Your gift was especially difficult to make."
"Thanks, Santa, but all I want is some time alone."
"Exactly!" he chuckled, "I've made you a clone."
"A clone?" she asked, "What good is that?
Run along, Santa, I've no time for chit-chat."
The mother's twin. Same hair, same eyes, same double chin.
"She'll cook, she'll dust," she'll mop every mess.
You'll relax, take it easy, watch The Young & the Restless."
"Fantastic!" the mom cheered."My dream come true!"
"I'll shop, I'll read, I'll sleep a whole night through!"
From the room above, the youngest began to fret.
"Mommy?! I scared... and I 'm wet.
"The clone replied, "I'm coming, sweetheart."
"Hey," the mom smiled, "She knows her part."
The clone changed the small one, and hummed a tune,
As she bundled the child, in a blanket cocoon.
"You the best mommy ever. " I really love you."
The clone smiled and sighed, "I love you, too."
The mom frowned and said, "Sorry, Santa, no deal."
"That's my child's love, she's trying to steal."
Smiling wisely Santa said, "To me it is clear,"
"Only one loving mother, is needed here."
The mom kissed her child, and tucked her into bed.
"Thank you, Santa, " for clearing my head.
I sometimes forget, it won't be very long,
When they'll be too old, for my cradle-song."
The clock on the mantle began to chime.
Santa whispered to the clone, "It works every time."
With the clone by his side Santa said,
"Goodnight. Merry Christmas!
Mom, You'll be all right."

The bright side of things

Our family has found our selves dealing with problems and bad stuff coming at as one thing after the other lately. I've been soul searching the last week about all this and decided today that I need to make a list of all this stuff and turn it around. Everything that happens has a plus side. Something to learn or grow from. So here it goes.

1. Con: My cat got sick and I had to put her down. Pro: We don't have a pet to worry about when we go on vacation or to listen to my husband complain about when she makes a mess.

2. Con: My grandma gets diagnosed with cancer and is given 3-6 months to live. Pro: Now this one was hard. There is no pro to this one for me or my family. But if we think of her for a minute, she's about to be reunited with her eternal companion that she's been away from for many years! That is wonderful for her! I can only imagine how happy she will be back in his arms!

3. Con: We all got very sick with the H1N1 virus of which I had dreaded because of Austin's asthma. Pro: We came out the other side with no visits to the ER and while Austin did have problems he survived just fine. Now I don't have to worry about how he will handle it.

4. Con: I woke up yesterday with a double ear infection and had to go all day with cotton in my ears so I could be around my kids while Tony was at work. Pro: Today was a lot better and I got a prescription and it was only one day. That's the best I got for that one.

5. Con: Tony's class is super hard this time around and he is really stressing about it. It's been hard on the whole family because he's always worried about getting it done and can't spend time with the kids like they would like him to. Pro: it's only one more month and then he graduates and is done with school forever!

6. Con: My knee has never recovered and there's not a lot of options but to just live with it since the next option is not something I'm willing to do. Pro: With the help of some Advil I can do most everything I was able to do before and with more training I think it will get even stronger. I'm not going to let it hold me down.

That's the big things. I'm going to concentrate on the big picture and take things as they come. We aren't given more then we can handle!

homeschool

We've finally gotten into a groove with our new curriculum! It took us a few weeks to figure out how it works, then how we needed to adjust it to work for us but I think we are finally getting it down! The last few days have really gone quite well. The boys are able to get everything done in about 3-4 hrs including breaks. That's WAY faster then the first couple weeks! The curriculum says it should take 2-3 hrs to do everything. We're only 1 hr off! I think that hr is spent getting each other distracted during math. The worksheet they do each day should only take 10-15 min but they keep each other distracted and it ends up taking over an hour. We need to work on that. Maybe we should do the math portion in different rooms instead together at the table. Now there's an idea.....

catch up

I haven't been posting as much as I should. Here's what we've been doing though.

We got back from our trip and Tony finished his second to last class.

My cat went to the vet and they put her on a special diet of wet kitten food and pain pills. They said her teeth are really bad and she's not eating enough. She had lost too much weight. Pour kitty. They told me there's nothing they are willing to do because of her age. Surgery is too risky.

After that little drama Tony's dad came to visit. We had a blast with him here. We played bocce a couple times which the boys totally loved! We tried five guys burgers for the first time. That was really yummy! We went to the ball park and played a little baseball. Until it got too hot and the boys couldn't take it any more. Sierra warmed up to Poppy so fast! We were very surprised. She hasn't seen him since she was a tiny little baby. We'd shown her pictures but that's it. But within 30 min. She was talking to him and going over to him. She's never warmed up to someone that fast. Within the hour till we went to dinner she was in love with her Poppy!

I'm starting piano lessons tomorrow. I'm excited! It's something I've always wanted to learn. We'll see how fast I can learn it. I'm terrible at memorizing things. I've tried in the past to learn to read music with no success. I'll give it a go again though.

Tony is starting his last class for his Masters degree in a couple weeks and then we are celebrating his graduation and our ten year anniversary together with a trip to Florida and Disney World! I'm so excited! We are starting to plan it and the more we look into it the more excited we are getting.

Vacation

We had a wonderful time on our trip to the coast with Tony's family! We spent a week in Nehalem Bay state park camping in our huge tent. I love our tent! We played lots of games, went on lots of walks, played on the beach, and spent one day in Tillamook. We saw the cheese factory and went to the air museum. We had a slide show of pictures from the last 20 years of family trips Tony's family went on. It was so fun seeing him and his cousins, Aunts, Uncles, and the rest though the years. The kids were great the whole week. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Sierra's two!

My baby is now a two year old. This is the cake my sister and her mother in law made for Sierra. It turned out so cute! Sierra picked out this princess dress to wear to her party. It was too big on her but she looked cute in it anyway. Room to grow.

Really full house

My brother in law gets here today and they are offically moving here now. We are so happy to have them here with us. Kris finds out if she has the job she interviewed for on Monday. They can use all the prayers they can get. Things seem to be falling into place for them we are very happy for them.

My knee is starting to improve. No more crutches. I went to the dr. and he gave me a cortizone shot because he said it was all inflamed. That has helped a lot. I'm so glad that I'm mostly back on my feet again. It feels good to be able to help clean the house again.

Food storage

I've been getting my food storage together and got a shelf relience can organizer to put it all on. I love it! I just got an email from them that they are doing a drawing and giving one away! Here's the website: http://www.shelfreliance.com/blog/?p=104&cpage=12#comment-653 they are so great!

My sister is moving back home!

Kris came to help me with my knee surgery and said she could stay 2-3 weeks. Five weeks later she's looking for a job and is planning to move here! We're so excited! Her husband is going back to school and she can't be in Wyoming with no one to watch the kids so she can work. There's no reason for them to stay there if he's going to stop working there so they are coming home. It's been so nice having her around and I'm so excited that she won't be leaving us and going back to Wyoming. I'm also excited that Sierra will be able to grow up with her cousin Keira around so they can be close friends. I've worried that she would have a hard time being the only girl in the family. We're so happy to be getting them back.

So slow!

I'm going on week three and still on cruches. They told me that this time would take a bit longer to heal. I had no idea it would be this bad though. My leg still feels so weak. Every day seems to be a slight improvement though. I'm so glad that Kris was able to come help me! I never could have done this without help! I've been able to concentrate on healing and my excercises and I know that the kids are well cared for and my house is being cleaned. Kris has been spoiling us with very yummy food too. As crazy as it has been with all the kids they are such a joy to watch play together (when they aren't fighting over toys that is). The girls are having so much fun together. They will miss each other when Kris has to take them home. The boys are having a blast too. Austin and Anthony are getting so close. It's so good for the kids to get to know their cousins. With Kris living in Wyoming they don't get to see each other very often. This has been so good for them. I owe you huge little sis! You're wonderful!

It's been a crazy couple of weeks!

To update about my last post Sierra went back into diapers right after we trained her because of my knee surgery. She still asks to go and we take her but that will happen later. Right now we just can't deal with that. I had knee surgery a week and a half ago. That's been a long slow recovery but starting to improve a little each day. I stopped taking the heavy pain meds today and haven't needed it. I'm still on the Aleve. It's sore but tolerable. I like that I can think straight and stay awake again. My sister has been here since the surgery and has been wonderful. It's pretty crazy with five small children running loose but we are having fun despite the craziness. We've played settlers a couple times. That's always a blast. Nap time is always a wonderful time of day. I'm getting antsy from just sitting around and want to do more than I should.

well it's done

Sierra is potty trained! That was too easy! She still has some accidents but she knows when to tell us and keeps clean most of the day. I don't know if it's because she's a girl and it's true that they are easier or if it's the 3 day training program but what a difference from the boys!

On another note though, I went to the doctor because my knee had been bothering me and after an MRI and seeing a specialist it turns out I need surgery. They told me that a piece of my cartilage has riped off and is floating around causing problems. Also they noticed that my knee cap is stuck tipped a little and rubbing on the bones and causing an increase in the arthritis I already have. There's always something.

hoping for the best

Potty training boys didn't go over very well. We struggled for years to get the two boys both trained. It was quite a nightmare. Then we had Sierra. We hoped that having a girl would be easier. People said they were easier. Well I was getting ready to start in a couple months. I started telling her about potties and what they are for and all that but not really putting her on it to try or anything just getting the idea in her head. Well she started asking to go. So I started just having her sit on it just if she asked not thinking anything would happen. Well she's been asking more and more and now she's actually going in it when she asks to go. She still has dirty diapers and we are still not officially training her yet but she's doing the training on her own. I don't want to get my hopes up after two terrible times with the boys but I am hoping this continues and she is as easy as it seems she will be. What a pleasant ending to the potty training years.

What a week!

I had quite a week this week. It started out really good. I was excited to have family coming to visit, Austin's birthday was on it's way and we had two great parties planned, I started my gym membership and saw my trainer which went really well. Things were good. Then I started getting sick. Oh well I'll just suffer through a little head cold. How bad could it be? Well the in-laws get here and I break out in a really bad cold and loose my voice. Ok, I can keep going no big deal. We have Austin's first party with the cousins. That went well. Then that evening my knee starts hurting. It must just be arthritis acting up I'll just walk it off no big deal. The next day It's still hurting. I ignore it some more and just keep going. I still have no voice and visitors here. Austin's next party is the next day I have to push through this. That night it's starting to swell so I take some Advil and go to bed with my leg up on a pillow. The next day is Austin's birthday. The swelling is down so I just ignore it and just walk with a slight limp. So much to do for Austin no time to worry about it now. Still not much of a voice but oh well. We do the party and it's a blast. My knee is pretty sore so I put a brace on it then we do dinner with everyone. When we get home I finally get to look at my poor knee. I take the brace off to find it totally swollen! Huge! I take some more Advil. Still don't know what's going on with it but too much going on to think about it right now. I remembered I had a sample from my mom of an aloe product called MSM. It's for sore muscles and joints so I put some of that on it and go hang out with the family. Well about 20 minutes after I put that stuff on it the swelling and stiffness is gone! Wow! So I go to bed with it up. The next day it's so much better but still sore and I'm still sick but the family leave for there ski trip and I just stay home and rest all day. I put more of that stuff on it and it's really helping. I probably shouldn't have ignored it so long but my body just fell apart on the wrong week. I'm just going to take the next few days to rest and recover. I'm hoping I didn't do too much damage to my knee. I need to get back to the gym.

laying down the law

We decided to try out a new reward system with the kids. Grounding and corner wasn't working at all so I came up with a new plan yesterday. so far today it's gone really good. I made a points system where we start the day with 30 points and they can earn more or lose them by doing good things or bad behavior. They use the points to watch their favorite shows or the Wii or computer games. They earn points by doing workbooks, art projects, exercise, reading and writing. They seem to be taking to it well. They'd have to do quite a bit to get the 2 hrs of screen time the doctors say to limit them to. They only earn 1-5 points at a time. Each point is a minute of time. Today was day one and went really well. I'm hoping it continues to go well.

Forever Living

So my mom talked me into signing up to get these aloe products. I started using them again. My mom used them all the time when we were growing up but had stopped when we moved. Well she started back into it and I signed up too. They are wonderful products that I really believe work so I signed up and now can get them at a discount. I don't really feel like getting into selling them necessarily but I could if we needed me to make some money at some point. I used the liquid soap on Sierra's hair today. She's had severe cradle cap since she was tiny and we've been using T-gel on it but it stinks really bad. So I got the aloe soap and it totally worked! I was so happy her hair won't stink like medicine anymore! I've been using the diet plan and I've lost a few inches. I'd been on a plateau for a while trying everything but nothing was working so I'm excited about that. Oh and I scraped my thumb and it was looking pretty bad. I put the aloe jelly on it and over night it looks so much better. I used the heat lotion on my back after hurting it and it totally has been helping it. I'm so excited to have these great products in my home again.

Destructive stage

Brian has reached the destructive stage. He is always breaking and destroying random stuff for no good reason. We can't figure it out. Tony says it's just a boy thing and he'll grow out of it. He remembers going through it too. Fun with boys. I'll never understand them. Austin is back to napping every day. He just needs a nap or around 4 he becomes impossible. I don't care what the doctors say, red-heads do have a hot temper. When I told the kids doctor that he has a red headed temper she got upset and said that the color of hair has nothing to do with temperament. It was then that I realized that she dyes her hair and that it is really red.

paint

Right before I got pregnant with Sierra I started painting my walls. I got done with the first coat downstairs then got pregnant and never finished. I figured I'd start back into it after she was born. Well she's now 18 months and I have yet to start it again. I'm wanting to paint my room now but need to finish the huge project I had started before. This would be easy to finish if I didn't have 3 little "helpers" wanting to play in the paint. I'm thinking I'm going to have to have Tony take them somewhere for the day while I just get it done. Has anyone else tried to paint their house with three little kids running wild? Any advise?

head start on the spring cleaning

So I've been watching a lot of HGTV lately and feeling quite inspired to improve our home. I've been re-arranging everything and organizing. It's amazing how much stuff one can accumulate over the years. We have a lot of stuff in this house! I've done quite a bit but still have so far to go. It's really hard to organize when you're married to someone who can't throw anything out. He's got stuff he's not seen for years but can't part with the boxes. Well I'm working around it and trying to at least keep that stuff out in the garage.

It's been a while

I've not been in here in a while adding anything. I've been so consumed with stuff to write anything. We've had ear infections, sinus infections, and the start of pneumonia mixed with a bout of asthma. All that after two weeks of head colds. We are finally all done with meds and recovered. I started a cleansing program my mom sells from forever living products. It's an intense program but seems to be a good one so far. I'll let you all know how it goes in the end. It's only been since Saturday so not long enough to know the full affect yet.

My sister surprised us by driving up for New Year's. That was great having her back here for a while. It was sad seeing her leave but I'm happy that it looks like she'll be moving back soon! We all miss them so much and really hope that their plans to come back work out.