May or May Not

I may or may not have been at CVS a few weeks ago checking out when my youngest son may or may not have been running around the store with my other 3 children chasing him and trying to tackle him to drag him back to me. There may or may not have been 5 people behind me in line watching the whole ordeal.

I may or may not have recently told my oldest daughter that we are not the Rockefellers when she tried to throw almost a whole thing of Dora yogurt in the garbage. She may or may not have given me the strangest look because hey, don't most 5 year olds know who the Rockefellers are?

I may or may not have tried to put my 4 kids on the down escalator at the mall last week and after 2 got on they may or may not have freaked out and tried to run back up. I may or may not have finally gotten them off and declared that we will just use the elevator instead.

My oldest daughter may or may not have done a sneeze/fart in the middle of church and the rest of our family and the two rows in front of us may or may not have been doing the silent church giggle for about 5 minutes while this daughter may or may not have acted like nothing happened.

You may or may not hear "There is no charge for awesomeness!" said around our house a lot if you come over. And I may or may not blame my husband for this.

Multitude Monday

The continuation of the Thousand Gifts I am thankful to God for.

33~ a picnic at the park

34~ riding the carousel with my girls

35~ swimming with the kids for the first time in our pool

36~ an ice cream cone on a hot day

37~ a Saturday home with my husband

38~ projects getting done

39~ freshly baked chocolate chip cookies

40~ a day to rest and worship God

41~ sisters

42~ contagious giggles

43~ sound of kids playing hide and seek

44~ spell check

45~ healthy kids

For more on starting your own list of a thousand gifts visit http://www.aholyexperience.com/

Taking Time Out to Play

It's so easy to get caught up in my day to day activities that I don't take time out to really just spend time with my kids. I think it's kind of carried over from when they were little and it was so hard to take them all somewhere so we just stayed home. Now they are older and it's easier to go, I just need to remember that. This whole summer seems to be busy but the last couple weeks things slowed down a little. Yesterday, I decided to forgo the things on my list that don't really need to be done right now anyway and pack a lunch and take the kids the park. After all, it's been a cool summer so I might as well take advantage of being able to go to the park in the middle of July without sweating buckets. I had visions of us having this great picnic lunch and we were all talking and laughing and having a great time but of course when we got there they ate their lunch as fast as they could so they could go play on the toys. My sister Nikki and her two boys joined us since the park is half a block from her house.

Then this morning my husband called me at about 8:30 and said he wanted to go to the Porter County Fair and if we got there before 1:00 we didn't have to pay to get in. A man after my own heart, he hears a deal and he jumps on it! Well, if you know me at all, you know that I'm more of a planner and not really a spontaneous person. But I embraced this because it was something fun we could do as a family and I could put off my 'to do list' another day! So off we went to spend a fortune on food and rides.

Unfortunately, the animals weren't really there yet only rabbits and dogs. We at corn dogs, saw Rusty the Railcat, got our hands painted (because they don't want it on their face, they can't see it), ate ice cream, went on rides and watched the pig races.

It was a fun day and I am extremely exhausted. Can't wait for tomorrow when I get to do all the things I have put off the last couple days like grocery shopping, laundry, ironing and who knows what else.

Wordless Wednesday

Cheap Entertainment

Are your kids bored? Haul out their picture books from when they were babies. Kept my kids busy for an hour yesterday and then another hour this morning.

Multitude Monday

19 ~ a hot shower

20~ toothpaste

21 ~ smell of home made pizza baking in the oven

22 ~ cool nights

23 ~ a compliment from my son

24 ~ lists

25 ~ family UNO games

26 ~ cuddling in bed with my boys at the end of the day

27 ~ reading books with Isaac while everyone else is still sleeping

28 ~ a random 'I love you' from Amanda

29 ~ dishes cleaned and put away

30 ~ seeing my fence go up around my yard

31 ~ my pool is no longer a disgusting shade of green

32 ~ a clean house (at least for a little while)

I started my list of 1000 gifts last week and this a continuation. Feel free to join in at a holy experience or just grab a piece of scrap paper and start your list.

"giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" Ephesians 6:20

A Week in Review

Brad is at the Sox game, the kids are having their afternoon relaxing time of a couple cartoons and so that means I get to nap read a book fold laundry blog.

The week started out with a Monday evening Railcats game along with Grandpa, Aunts, Uncles and cousins. The kids know exactly what baseball games are for -- food! Everyone had a lot of fun and the highlight was getting to give Rusty and Rascal (the Railcats mascot) a high five and doing the chicken dance. Except for I think the adults were the only ones actually doing it while the kids watched.

On Wednesday we spent the day at Pine Lake again with Grandpa, Aunts, Uncles and cousins. This time we were minus Dad but in addition we had the Michigan aunt, uncle and cousins.

We did some tubing.

Some eating.

Some boating.

And had some fun playing in the water.

Yesterday, Amanda went and got her first haircut that wasn't done by mom. We all headed over to Great Clips because I had a coupon. Of course, I forgot the coupon but talked the girl into giving me the coupon price because it was either that or she didn't get a tip because I only had so much money with me.

In other news, I think the pool might actually be up and running soon after having to purchase a few new parts and a broken filter pump. Then onto the fence, patio and deck. Hopefully we'll be finished by the end of the summer to enjoy it a couple times. And I just finished cleaning the camper. It only took me 2 months. Now I have a long list of things we need to shop for to fill the camper with.