I HATE WINTER....

I have been doing nonstop laundry - thanks to winter and all the layers we must wear!
I have dried a gazillion gloves,hats,and coats to go back outside in the cold,wet snow!
My skin is about to fall off from me itching it all the time and the spots I can't reach..aaarrrggghh!!!
It takes at least - at LEAST - 15 minutes to get 1 child ready to go outside! Times that by 3!!
For them to be outside for all of 10 minutes and come back in becasue it is cold - no duh it is cold!
FREEZING cold Toilet Seats because the heat is turned down so low!!!
Flu,runny nose,coughing,sore throat,fever and Lysol!
I have absolutely,positively no Love for cold weather! I would much rather be in flip flops and tshirts ALL the time!!
Every year I forget - just for a brief moment - what it is like come january and we still have 2 more months of being inside to go!!! I just want to be outside and play - in my flip flops and tshirt!
Calgon - Take Me Away!!!!!

Table Manners Canvas Giveaway!

We have a great canvas hanging in our house that I painted, listing some of our key "manners" that should be observed during our mealtimes.

Should being the operative word.

The Table Rules are:

1. Say the blessing
2. Chew with your mouth closed
3. Say please and thanks
4. Take small bites
5. Don't play with your food
6. Have pleasant conversation
7. Keep your elbows off the table
   

I am giving away one handmade canvas of Table Manners to one of you lucky readers! The canvas is 16x20 in size. To enter your name in the drawing, just leave a comment below - and please be sure that there is a way to contact you. If I can't figure out who you are or how to get ahold of you, I will draw another name. The giveaway is open until Friday night at 8pm (US residents only, please).

This giveaway is part of the Bloggy Giveaways Carnival being hosted over at Bloggy Giveaways. Be sure to visit the carnival headquarters so you can check out the tons and tons of great giveaways going on this week. Just click the graphic below!

Horton hears a Who....

we bought this game yesterday at Target (clearance of course - $5) and it is so stinkin fun! you hide 6 clovers around the room and if you land on a clover on your turn you have 1 minute to find it - everyone hides them together so you all know where they are. first you must put on the Horton mask which has a long nose with velcro attached to the end to pick up the clover with! the hat hurts us big folk becasue it is ridiculously hard plastic but it is so much fun! definately for the younger crowd but fun torture for the older kids since the younger ones always have to play their games!!!

SNOW DAY.........

yes - this is how Alex broke his collar bone the First time but he claims it is different because he was standing up when that happened!!!

loving a good deal...

i was in dollar tree today and found these really super cute and super adorable bible figurines. my friend had mentioned the nativity at christmas from tales of glory and i looked at it at the store but never bought it and then it was gone so i was thrilled to see these little play things of david,goliath,noah,moses,mary and jesus at the dollar tree!! they are also by this company called tales of glory. i highly recommend running to your local dollar tree to see if they have them!

i am consumed by painting ideas and projects and it is keeping me awake!!! i havent had this desire so strong in awhile - not since i started homeschooling - and it is seriously keeping me awake and waking me up at night! all these ideas i have come across since blogging have gotten my creative whatnot flowing and i am having a love/hate relationship with it all!!! I do so love to paint and be creative but i do have so much trouble stopping once i start! my hubby is off for 3 straight days and of course i am working but i am also plotting in my head all the painting/projects I can get done and new things I can try my hand at!!!!
I did this for a friend last year.

maybe this is why i shouldnt paint when the kids are awake??? he talked to me the entire time and i mean the entire time i was painting...about 2 hours

we got a lizard today! Fabulous!! can you hear the sarcasm??? this lovely new pet has already cost double the amount the boys thought it was going to cost and now I am all stressed out that the thing is not warm enough because our bulb in the lamp that we can get over his cage is only 20W not 50 or 75W!!!! this will be remedied tomorrow but until then i keep checking him - stupid - I know!!

we are so praying for snow tomorrow! the boys got all hyped up when they saw snow today for all of about 20 minutes and it didnt stick and they were so deflated!

please notice the LACK of snow on the ground last week when it did snow but also notice that it didnt stop my children from sledding! when they went out it was snowing good but it stopped and this is what we were left with! they had a blast!!

notice shiloh in the background.....she loved the snow! alex would throw snowballs at her, she would chase them and eat them and come running back for more!

for Thomas it is all about eating the snow. he ate snow the whole way down every time he sled!

then.....we went to our friends house who had a frozen pond in their backyard - that was so much more fun!! mommy was a little scraed of all the cracking and popping noises the ice kept making but nobody went in so all was well!
stephen actually tried ice skating but quickly went back to boots!

to me this looked like it was the most fun! can you see their faces????

and away they go....to do Boy stuff........way too cute!

the yellow ones....

today as I was headed out to get milk Thomas put in a request for cheerios. I reminded him that we already have cheerios, he looked at me a little funny for a couple seconds and then said 'mommy get the yellow ones'! apparently the 3 year old has figured out the difference between brand name and generic cheerios and the generic ones are no longer satisfactory to his tastes!!

Picture Update....

I have been getting caught up on rearranging things and reorganizing my project room as well as working and homeschooling so I have done a lot more reading of blogs than posting this week!! I do so enjoy to read other peoples blogs but I do get caught up in it! I love knowing that I am not alone in my craziness!!!

I love this time of year because I get to revamp everything and reorganize! I love putting away the christmas decorations so I can reorganize them - OCD!!! My hubby is off this weekend and so am I so I am going to enlist his help for some furniture rearranging and whatnot - especially in my bedroom so we can paint next weekend!! I am so excited to have a bedroom that will look somewhat like a bedroom instead of a catch all for everything that doesnt have a place!

I made this for my sister while she was here. She is going to put it in her bedroom! i think i will definately have to make one for myself once my room redo is all done!

this is the tail end of the rainbow the boys saw the other day - they got so excited to see a rainbow! it was a full rainbow out the back door - beautiful and bright! i love the reminder that rainbows bring of Gods promises and that he will fulfill those promises! such a neat reminder of the truly amazing in the middle of a dreary, rainy day!

So - heres the story.......i bought this gingerbread house on 90% clearance at Target - i think I paid .99 for the thing - for Next Year. It has been sitting in the kitchen waiting to go in a box under the house and the boys started pestering me to make it - so I caved(as usual)! I got home late from work and they had seemed to forget about making it until it was almost time for bed and so I figured we had 30 minutes to kill - why not? I helped them get started with the frame of the house and the icing until......it was time for the season premiere of 24!! I took off up the stairs and left the boys to finish on their own - HA!HA! After they were in bed and 24 was over - 2 hours later - this is what I came downstairs to!! I just started laughing!! I am still not sure if it fell or if the boys just said to heck with it - all we really wanted was to eat the candy so lets just eat the candy! On a side note - I LOVE the TV show 24!!! Not at all appropriate for the little ones but I do enjoy it and so does Alex!

Stephen took this lovely picture of his mother - ain't she something??? I do feel sorry for my husband becasue truly I do look like this more than I look the way I do when I go to work! I was getting stuff together for the yard sale at alex's school and headed out to load the van in my pj's, my big fuzzy snow boots and my favorite hat! I spent the majority of the day in this get-up!!

Did I tell you about the proudest moment of our christmas break?? alex killed a squirrel with his brand new BB Gun. He skinned it, cleaned it, cooked it and ate it! I was mortified and it was very hard for me to be proud but I tried!! He was so excited and proud of himself! Ben thought it was awesome and couldnt wait to try it when alex cooked it - no I didn't try any. I just couldnt do it! I know - Horrible mother!

I wanted to show you some pics from alex's 2 basketball games this week but I realized they are still on the camera and I want to go to bed so I will save those for later! They one 1 and lost 1!

Getting lost in Blog World....

is one of my favorite things to do! I have gotten on so many times to post some of these crazy thoughts that are just circling in my head and I get lost in all the blogs I am following that have posted - especially the crafty ones! I have found so many projects I want to try that I may have to send my kids back to school so I can play - just kidding!!! I will tell you that come Christmas next year every single person that I have ever come in contact with will be getting a gift if I actually play around with all these ideas that are consuming my thoughts!!!

For those of you that live near me you need to head over to my place of employment - family christian store - and check out some of the clearance stuff that I have been putting out!! If you like clearance stuff, that is! It is just a bunch of random items so I can't be specific about aht exactly is on clearance but the prices are out of this world! Almost everything is 75% off and some of the things are 90% off (but marked 75%)!! I did hit the jackpot - as can you - on frames. They are little frames(perfect for frig frames and ornaments) about 2x2 and 2x3 and they are only .50 cents! I have filled an entire box with the ones I want and there are still a ton left over!!! This is the clearance junkie in me coming out - I can't wait to get to work tomorrow to finish opening the boxes and see what else there is on clearance! It is like christmas but you have to pay for it!!!

Another random thought - I love our church! We just recently(this summer) made a decision to leave the church we had been attending since we moved here. It was a hard decision becasue we love the people we met, the teaching and the fellowship at the old church butw e really were feeling a spiritul pull to explore other options. The new church is one we have visited many times over the years we have been here but we had never felt the pull to leave the old church until recently and when we did the new church was the first place we went and we never visited another one! I am amazed at the growth in myself, my husband and the kids since we have been there. I have missed a few weeks - not in a row - but we did miss 2 in a row and boy did I feel the difference in our house. Is it possible that church can have that affect on our lives - yes! yes! yes! The people have been so accepting,open,loving,caring and generous with us and the preaching is beyond amazing! It is even more incredible to see the fruit of the preaching lived out in the lives of the congregation!

I am supposed to be going to bed earlier so that I am a better mommy,wife and person to be around - Good Night!!!

We have been kicked out of Boot Camp.......

We didn't even last 2 days on this hard core boot camp foolishness!! Of course - it is my fault not theirs but..... here is what has happened -
I tried to get myself organzied (i do so love charts,graphs and all that foolishness but i never - ever follow them after I spend hours putting them together) by making new house rules, trying to make sure we stay on track with school, focusing on the character aspect of the boys behavior - in other words staying on top of the rules and discipline, and actually staying at home! Those were the biggest goals of this boot camp for me and the boys!
Monday we got off to a good start - school was long and painful becasue we have been off for so long but I am hoping it was for all of you too -it makes me feel better deep down inside to think that! We did chores which have also fallen to the wayside and mommy was somewhat on top of the boys behavior.
Tuesday - I ended up working all day long and didnt get home until they were all in bed so I had basically no contact with my children all day so whatever went wrong on Tuesday was not my fault!
Today - I didn't get up till almost 930 ( my husband is home on weds mornings and is a sweetheart to let me sleep in) becasue I was up so late last night due to not being able to sleep after working all day. The boys all climbed into our bed for about a half hour (aaahhhh!!!) and I decided to get up to take a shower. In the 15 minutes between the decision and the actual getting in the shower I put both Ben and Stephen to work reading to themselves and had already gotten the bright idea that we would go to the thrift stores to look for skis for the little boys before we went to the Children's Museum for a little bit in the afternoon! This is where I get into trouble all the time - this is how it always starts for me! I decided we would do the rest of school - bible and history and whatnot tonight since daddy works late anyways and we would head out after I got dressed and ready to go. I gave Ben and Stephen this great math game thing we have to practice their addition tables for a few minutes, got dressed and we were out the door until almost 445 tonight! Do you think we did school tonight - NO! We came home watched a movie, ate and went to bed!
We will try to stay on track tomorrow but I am up late again talking to you so that means I will put them infront of PBS to get a few more minutes of sleep in the am!!!

Getting Old or Just too Fat.....

I ended up working from 930-930 today and I am in pain! My feet hurt,my knees ache, my legs are so very tired from standing all day and I can't figure out if it is because I am getting old or if I am just too fat and really need to lose some weight! I am pretty sure it is both! I have no desire to diet and exercise so fixing that issue is gonna take some time and the whole age issue just sucks! I need sleep.......night!night!

Christmas Break is OVER.....

and it ended with a Bang! Today was a great day for us - we are borrowing an idea from another blog I have checked out - Our Peculiar Life and we are doing some serious get back to the basics around here for the next week! She calls it Boot Camp! This as much - if not more - for Mommy as it is for the boys but we have all been getting away with too much foolishness since mommy went back to work and it just has to stop! It is so hard to be consistent but I am committed to working it out and if that means we spend a lot of time at home then that is what we will do to get ourselves straightened out! I have to admit we do leave the house a lot for stupid things - just to get out since it is winter - which in turn ends up in spending money we don't have and it all just ends in a tailspin of ugliness but I am committed to keeping my behind at home and finding more things to do around here to occupy our time! Now - this may mean I start moving furniture around again and possibly even paint a wall or two again but so be it!

Last night my husband said to me - maybe we don't even need TV(meaning cable). I am dancing a Jig right now for all of you that can't see me!!! The Lord has slowly been working on us in regards to our tv watching and we are finally on the same page - I have been way ahead of my hubby for awhile now - and I am sooo excited!!! I can't wait to get rid of it! I have become convicted that TV is rotten and there is no need for it in our house. If we only have movies and what we choose available to the boys then they won't watch the crap they have been watching! I could go on and on but I won't - I just wanted to share my Joy in this new development around here!!!

Alex and Danny are behind me playing Wii golf and they have been having the best time! Of course - they have been at it for over 2 hours and that part of it makes me crazy but what great bonding time for the two of them! Here is the downside - Alex just showed danny how to play golf with just your wrist so the two of them aren't even getting up to play they are just sitting there......what is that??? Didnt we get the Wii becasue it is supposed to make them more active when they play video games ( not really but I am sure that I heard that somewhere)! We are sooooo getting the outdoor challenge for Ben for his birthday - I can't wait to go log rolling!!!

We were talking about getting a laptop tonight and we started joking about eating spaghetti for a couple months so we could save for a laptop and now Alex won't stop talking about it!!! He is all excited about us getting a laptop because he wants to put this computer in his room - no internet of course! I am going to start researching what we should get because we don't want to spend too much but we don't want to have to replace it in a year either! Any suggestions from any of you???

I am working all day tomorrow after hitting Target first thing for the 90% off christmas stuff!!!and some groceries!

My Sister was here....

to visit us for a couple days! It was unexpected and so much fun! Her and her 2 boys drove here Thursday and the boys have all had so much fun playing together! We didn't do anything but visit and play and it was fun! The cousins really enjoy playing togetehr and get along real well which makes it a lot of fun to be together with them! Aunt Robin brought fireworks left over from their New Years Eve celebration and the boys thought that was awesome! They had to get all bundled up becasue it was so cold outside but they didn't care!

OOOOHHHHH!!! AAAAAHHHHH!!!

Today we went to the bottom of the ski slopes so they could play with snow for a little bit! Of course it turned into a snowball fight with tears and all!!

Tomorrow will be spent gearing up to go back to school since Christmas Break is officially over come Monday morning!!! I am excited to get back into the swing of things and settle down to try to establish some more routine around here - it has gotten out of control!!!

I went to a Party tonight...

and it was so much Fun! I haven't been to a Party in such a long, long time and I forgot how fun it is to hang out with other people,play games and have a beer (or 2)!! Okay - maybe I didn't forget how fun it is but I just haven't had any desire to drag my children to someone else's house,cater to their every need while trying to talk and hang out with the adults, deal with their temper tantrums or whining while trying to talk and hang out with the adults all the while secretly wishing I was at home because if I was the kids would be in Bed and I could do whatever I wanted to without their continuous interuptions!! I do so love my children but bedtime is sacred time for mommy in our house!!!
So - it was really fun to go to a party,play games and chat while the kids played and did their thing and only interrupted a few times and when they did - it was okay - I actually even enjoyed it! It is amazing to me year after year all the small things that get easier or better as the kids get older!!
Happy New Year!! Talk to you in 2009 - oh wait it is 2009 becasue as usual here I am at 230 am writing in my blog!!! We are anxiously awaiting all the amazing things God has in store for us this year!!