R and R

DH is a school teacher and because of the snow we had in December we had 3 weeks of Christmas Break instead of 2. The best part has been sleeping in. Next week we will be back to our regular schedule and I don't think we are going to adjust well. I don't think I've been out of bed before 8:30 the whole vacation. Not counting Sunday. This morning I woke Cor and Mya up at 9:30. I was tempted to let them sleep and see how long it would take them to wake up. But our church schedule will change for the new year and we will be going to church at 11:00 a.m. So now I can get up at 8 a.m. instead of 6 a.m. Ballerina and Em have been getting up at their usual time around 7:30 a.m. but then they play in their room for a while. They get the cat to come in then they close the door on her. She is usually dying for attention in the morning so that works out for her. The little girls come in and beg one of us to get up. If we have bananas on hand we tell them to have a banana for breakfast which they love.

Along with a lot of sleep there has also been a lot of yelling. My children have given up on their communication skills and no matter how much we talk about it their first attempt at conflict resolution is yelling and/or screaming. It is always unaffective but they keep doing it.

Much to my family's dismay I have gotten really sick of buying cold cereal. I try to buy the semi-healthy kind and one that they actually want but then they only eat the one they want and the others just sit there. DH wants yummy cereals for him to eat when he is hungry late at night because that is when he eats breakfast. But if I get the kind he wants then the kids will just want it and won't eat anything else. DH even tried to buy some cereal when we were wondering around the store. But they were $4 each. I said, "No way am I paying that much for cereal." He was really sad.

So I have been making real breakfast. I made my own whole wheat pancake mix (even ground my own wheat) and this morning I put blueberries in it. The kids won't eat it because they will only eat fresh, unbaked blueberries. It's sad. I also make oatmeal. They like oatmeal and pancakes but they would rather have disgusting, mostly sugar cereal. Boo Hoo. I don't feel sorry for them at all.

#29 Hang the stockings with Care

On Christmas Eve day DH and I made a list of things that needed to been done before the dinner with his family that evening. We added a few silly things to make it more fun. We also added some obvious things just to make ourselves feel like we got a lot done. I am pretty sure that there were at least 30 things.

One thing was for DH to kiss me passionately which he never did but I never finished smacking him in the head 10 times. I think I got 4 done. We also color coded the list. Green was for things to be done anytime during the day and Red was for things that had to be done within the last 2 hours before the dinner like baking the ham. When we finished something we wrote "Merry Christmas" over the top of it .

Mya was watching us so she made a list of her own and even color coded it. I thought it was too cute not to share.

It's Snow Fun

Ballerina looks so cute all bundled up. Do you like DH's yellow pants? Because I do.

The snow and watching the kids play has made Checkers really hyper.

Ballerina is bundled up so tight she can barely move her head around.

It might be hard to see here but our little tree is completely coated in about a 1/2 inch of ice. This was last night and today it's added another layer of snow on top of the ice. The weather man is calling it SNOWZILLA. DH is really excited about that. He is out now trying to shovel a foot of snow off the driveway so he can go to Walmart to pick up the kid's main gift for Christmas. I order it from the website and I used the Site to Store option. I wouldn't let him go get it last week because I thought it was too dangerous and now it's twice and dangerous. I feel dumb about that.

It's a BLIZZARD

Em

Cor and Ballerina

Mya

DH and Ballerina

Well it's not really but that's what we are calling it because it's the most snow we've gotten in a really really long time. The snow started last Sunday and it made our 2 week winter break into a 3 week winter wonderland. DH had so much fun this week playing in the snow and I had fun watching them from the window. I know I'm not the fun Mom I should be but I did make sure we had hot chocolate and hot cider supplies on hand. DH is a school teacher so that meant an extra week off of work for him too. Will we survive 3 weeks together? Well we barely survived the first week. DH and I make a good team but we have two completely different leadership styles. Both good just very different. So who is in charge when we are both home? The kids think it's me but I'm not really sure. That remains to be discovered and we may never know the answer.

I did try to have a togetherness/bonding family activity. It was called we'll all clean the house "together." The kids were suspisicious and DH hated the idea entirely. But I made them do it. I think sometimes it's good to learn to work together even if the job doesn't get done fast or right. DH is the get it done fast person and I am the get it done right person. I don't know if our togetherness time was emotionally productive for anyone but sometimes you just have to try things out.

DH tried building a giant snowman that didn't turn out looking anything like a snowman. He did build a snowman family at my request. They built several forts or barriers for snow ball fights but today he built a two room fort with a roof. The snowman family became part of the 2nd room. They have made the most out of the snow. I haven't gotten pictures yet because I had to charge the battery to the camera and sad to say I am still not confident on how to transfer the pictures from the camera to the laptop. It's pathetic. I will be forced to figure it out one of these days.

Last weekend I sent DH to Costco to pick up a few essentials such as pop-tarts. He called me from the store and asked if he could buy a robe. His old one is the one I made him the Christmas we got married so that would make it about 12 years old. It's really getting gross looking, enough that he has noticed. That means it's pretty bad. He got a nice polar fleece robe and has been wearing it almost everyday. We call it his smoking jacket. He looks very relaxed when he wears it. It's kind of funny to me. He has started to put a little more thought into his appearance and overall comfort of his clothes. I think I am starting to rub off on him. Yes!

Here we are at Cor's baptism. Everything turned out so perfect that day. I even had to give a talk in Sacrament meeting. But I was so grateful that I had a perfect hair and skin day. That really only happens once every couple years. Cor had a good experience and everything went as planned. My parent's even came over from Utah for the weekend.

Here is DH and I at the Pacific City, Cape Kiwanda for his birthday weekend. We had such a good time and you can see what a beautiful day it was.

You can also see our new kitty, Checkers, getting comfy with her favorite person. I don't really care much for pets but DH has taken to the cat. The kids love her and she gets a lot of attention which she seems to enjoy. A better picture would have been of all the scratches Em and Val had all over their bodies the first couple weeks we had the kitty. Checkers is very very patient with them but they pick her up and carry her the wrong way all the time and eventually she gets scared and scratches them. She is getting used to them now and doesn't scratch them so much and we've only had her six weeks.

Successfully Potty Training the Wrong Way, a book by EdgyK

I promise to never give anyone advice on potty training. I have successfully potty trained 3 of my 4 children the wrong way. I won't even tell you what I did because no one should follow my example. My first child potty trained so easily and probably would have trained herself even if I hadn't initiated it, so she doesn't count. I actually handed over potty training authority to my husband this weekend because I had lost all confidence in myself as a potty training mother. He pretty much used the same method I ended up using on Cor and Em. Ballerina could pee and poop in the toilet, she had the ability, but no desire. I had the same scenario when potty training Cor and Em. I read all the information available to me on potty training and worked hard to all the right things. But my children, like most, only do things when they choose to do it. I couldn't do what I had done with Cor and Em because I felt like it was the wrong way. DH didn't understand why I couldn't just do it again with Ballerina since it worked before. I guess I thought I'd get better at this mothering thing and wouldn't have to resort to bad mothering methods. Even though I still feel guilty I am glad cleaning poopy out of panties may be a thing of the past.