DH is a school teacher so he got to be home for two weeks during the winter break. I love it when he is home but quite often two things happen; he gets sick and we have some sort of disagreement. I have to admit the offense is usually my fault for over-reacting to something and he finally loses his patience with me. He is the most patient person I know. 2009 was no fights for the Christmas Break. It really is a Christmas miracle. Either I was extra good or he was extra patient with me. We are trying to get better at communicating since we both have a tendency to be passive-aggressive. He didn't get sick so I have to say it was the best Christmas break ever. We were both sad for him to go back to work yesterday. And we are a little tired because we stayed up late every night and slept in every morning. It was fabulous. We can't fall asleep at a reasonable time but we still have to get up early. Hopefully in a few more days we'll adjust back to real life. I miss having a grown up to talk to during the day.

I almost forgot to mention that he did the dishes and cleaned the kitchen everyday. Now I have to do it. Rrrr.

Which is worse?

Since my DH is home for two weeks during the winter break we head to the family cabin for a few days. It's fun except that we usually don't sleep very well and this time the hot water heater stopped working. I spent most the time reading Phantom by Susan Kay. It's a bit cheesy but very entertaining. Especially if you are in the woods at night.

I had taken a shower Monday and Tuesday we headed to the cabin. I thought I'd take a shower that night. No hot water, no shower. We weren't planning on coming home until Thursday. By Wednesday afternoon I was so gross that I could smell my own stench. I am always cold, I hate it and I am quite whiny about it too. But I thought I could be tough enough for a few minutes to get clean or at least not as disgusting. I stuck my head in the shower and I could hold it in there for about 10 seconds at a time before the back of my head started to freeze. I'd pull my head out and let it thaw then do it again. After that I wrapped my hair up in a towel then I jumped in the shower and twirled around twice, jumped out to thaw and did it again. I may have done that three times.

Now I know what I hate worse. What is it for you, being dirty or being cold?

Cute Apron and Chef's Hat pattern giveaway

I entered this cute giveaway.

Thought I needed a break?

I really felt like I needed a break but not to be. I had a huge event for our young women at church and I had volunteered to do all the last minute running around. I was almost to Costco, my last stop and my brakes starting giving out. Luckily my fabulous SIL Brittany was able to pick me up. I was grateful that I had gotten everything I needed but I nearly had a bad panic attack right before leaving to the young women's activity. I felt better once I got there and made it through the evening. That was last night and today I feel better. I am painting so I have been light-headed from the fumes. I really would have been able to handle the broken car if there hadn't been several other stressful things going at the same time. I am also grateful that I had left Em and Ballerina with Deena and Mya and Cory were at school. Many $'s later the van is fixed. That makes 4 repairs in three months. My van has over a hundred thousand miles so it's just going to have those problems but I really want to wait until next year before buying a new van. So I guess I'll keep fixing it.

When I called the tow company the guy who was helping me asked, "Is this the Kendra that married Scott and worked at the cannery." That was a weird question but it was a guy from high school and he and I were the only two non-Mexican workers at the cannery that summer. We hung out together on our lunch breaks and I never would have survived that icky job if it wasn't for him. He even gave me the nicest card at the end of the summer which I have never forgotten. What a funny coincidence to talk to him like that. He was a year younger than me but Scott remembered him too because he was such a nice guy. He must have like me for me because I never wore makeup to that job and I wore a hairnet everyday.

Tomorrow is Mya's 11th friend birthday party. We invited 13 girls and only a few have RSVP'd which is kind of frustrating that I don't know how many girls to expect. We are doing a Fondue theme. It should be fun no matter how many girls show up. She wanted a RC truck so I got her a giant one at Costco. The great thing about having an 11 year old is that she is so ready to babysit and that means a lot more freedom for me. I love it. For now I only have her babysit when I am no more than 5 minutes away. We might try going 10-15 minutes away in a month or two.

La la la la la la la

DH took this picture from our front yard. I haven't been blogging much or reading blogs. I am feel way behind. I had a subject I wanted to blog about but I keep trying to decide if it will come out right. October has been busy. The first half was mostly getting ready for Em's carnival birthday party which was TOTALLY AWESOME. I wish I had more time to do more but it was fun just the way it was. Em loved it.

Struggles: I have had a hard time focusing when my 10 and 9 year old talk to me. They talk so much and sometimes so randomly that my brain cannot keep up or slow down enough to concentrate on the meaning of the message. I find myself getting very frustrated with them. I am trying to be more attentive and control my temper.

Cor has been working so hard on his reading and spelling and I am so proud of his progress. He is very consistent with his spelling errors that I think things will eventually click for him. Either way I think we will have him tested for any learning disabilities. He is constantly switching his b's and d's which I remember doing too.

I had my once a month day that I get totally irritated with my lack of being able to keep the house clean. Usually I get over it and I am lazy again. I did decide that having a clean home would bring me a great deal of satisfaction and the only way that was going to happen would be if I started cleaning more consistently. I have a system but I had to start using it. So I have been doing really good this week. It is evening now and I cleaned and worked hard all day and my house is still a little messy but that is the mess that my little ones made after I cleaned. Ballerina did inform me that she was not going to clean up. She wanted to see what she could get away with. She did clean up her room so she could play on the computer. She did pretty good for being four years old. My room is very clean but I still have a few piles of projects that need to get finished and put in their place. I cleaned the mirrors and windows in my room today. I dusted a little, made the bed and lit the candle. I was trying to decide if I was being uptight when I informed DH that I don't like it when he wrestles with the kids on our bed. Especially when I have made the bed and they turn it into a big mess. The kids undo all the cleaning I do in the rest of the house and I really want my room to be off limits. As it is they are constantly dropping their stuff in there. At night I usually gather it all up and throw it out in the hall. I want my room to be a place where I don't have to think about all the stuff.

I used to fold my laundry on our bed but then I would leave it there then we would have to pile it on the floor and sometimes it would be there for days. I have moved the folding to the couch where I feel more motivated to get it put it away. I am totally caught up on my laundry. I only had to do one load today. My goal is two loads a day. I don't think I'll have enough to do laundry tomorrow. My dryer is dying so I am waiting for it to give out completely.

Things I need to buy:

Dryer
Carpet Cleaning, mine is dead
Tile for the backsplash in the kitchen
Bathroom faucet for Master bedroom
Flooring for Entry, Kitchen and Family room
A dressy coat for me
Curtains for the sliding door so I can get rid of the horrible, dirty blinds hanging there now. Why would you hang blinds that are impossible to clean? I don't understand it.

That's just off the top of my head. I know there is more but I don't even want to think about it. We were going to do the wood floors down the hall when we did the entry, kitchen and family room but now I am thinking that will be way too noisy. I think I want to put a berber carpet in the hall. It will be tougher and softer. Hopefully that's a realistic plan. The main obstacle with all of them is $. I am working on a savings plan but it will still be a while before I can afford floors especially if I am forced to buy a dryer.

I would also like to rip out the backsplash in both the bathrooms but I need to finish the kitchen first. I have a problem staying focused on one project until it's done. Hence the reason I have not had a consistently clean house. DH is always focused and I am trying to be a little more like him.

Mental struggle: I have been a little crazy lately and more weepy. Just hormones because I wasn't any more stressed than normal. I start worrying that no one loves me and I have failed at everything I've ever done. Yes, it's all so dramatic but I give into it until I talk some sense into myself. I hardly ever cry so when I start crying over one of the kid's movies then I know something is not working. Am I the only one that feels a little broken sometimes??? I feel better now. I don't ever remember feeling that way before I had kids, sleepless nights and an endless list of responsibilities. But I can't remember in detail my feelings or struggles prior to having children. I am amazed when I read my journal because my life is so different now.

My current stage of life is half a day with only one of my four kids. I love it. I love having the quiet time with Ballerina. Em comes home happy and plays so well with Ballerina. I can run errands in the morning just with Ballerina or short ones with both of them in the afternoon. I still have no clue what I will do when all of them are in school all day but I am confident I will come up with something. The logical answer would be to go back to school but I am not sure I'll be ready for that.

I know a totally pointless blog entry but that's what is up with me.

Summer Projects

Mya's room was one of the summer projects. This is a picture of Mya's stuff that I piled in the living so we could sort it out. For the most part I let my kids determine how and when they clean their rooms but Mya asked for help. One day I decided to tackle it. It took 1 1/2 hours just to take everything out of the room. We sorted through it all, threw away a lot, recycled a lot of papers. I think it's pretty reasonable now. I told Mya she could no longer give Cor a hard time about how gross his room is. That was over a month ago and I walked in there this week and it looks about the same as it did before I cleaned it. I don't go in there unless I have to. It bothers me that her and Cor's rooms are so messy but kids have to have their own space. We help Cor with his more often.

This was another project. The roof wasn't great when we bought the house and we knew we would someday have to replace it. Four and half years later we decided it was time to get it done. The priests (16-18 year old boys) from our ward came and helped tear it off for a service project. That was a huge help. A friend of ours who does construction gave us a great deal and had some of his guys come out and put the new roof on. It was a noisy week abut now its a beautiful new roof. It's hard to get excited about your roof but we tried.

Here's the new counters. The old ones were white with blue and pink speckles. Icky. The picture of the new ones looks very green and I don't think they look that green in real life. The sample we got didn't look green at all. We like it and this weekend I worked on staining the mitered corners. We are still looking for tile for the backsplash. Our great friend Brent helped DH insall the new counters. They just glued it on top of the old laminate, formica whatever it's called. It's has a cool texture that makes it always look wet and the dark color hides the dirt well. If you look at the above picture and the cupboards look different colors. That's the difference between regular light bulbs and the fluorescent. The cupboards closest to you looked so much warmer. We took out the florescents and felt a little guilty but we've gotten over it. We still use florescent bulbs in the other rooms but not in the bathroom because they made my hair look green.

Right after we got back from Fiji I decided I couldn't stand the sick color of the walls in my Master bedroom any longer. We painted all the walls white and one accent wall blue. It's lovely and serene. I am working on decorating the rest of the room but it's still kind of a mess. We both love the blue color which is a relief since picking out paint color can go very wrong sometimes. I also like the clean feeling of the white walls. Our room is getting closer to being a sanctuary than a place to dump our junk.

I wanted to do the floors in the entry, hall, kitchen and family room with some laminate wood flooring but the savings account was not sufficient to fund that project so it will have to wait a little longer. We also need a need a new entry chandelier, new kitchen faucet, bathroom faucet, door knobs and the list goes on and on. But that's how it is when you own a home and a limited amount to spend on it. I am very pleased with what we've accomplished this year. We had to buy a new dishwasher and a new microwave too which wasn't really fun but necessary.

Fogarty Beach

This was a super fun beach. It had this creek where the kids could play and move the rocks around. The sand was not really sand but small rocks. It was darker too so it was pretty hot. DH and I were sad we both forgot to bring books. We played for over four hours before we decided it was time to head home. We used to go to this beach a lot when I was a kid, with all my cousins.

There's Cor checking out some sea weed or pieces of wood to carve. There is a lot of sea weed on this beach and the ocean crashes huge waves right up on shore. So it wasn't really safe to play in but the creek was fun and the waves were amazing to watch. That big rock ahead of him is perfect for climbing on.

Ballerina and I were going to climb the big rocks but she didn't like the loud, large waves so we played in the creek and tried not to burn our feet. I know that doesn't sound like fun but it was a perfect day. It was almost 70 degrees and not enough wind to fly our big kite but it was nice not to get blown away. We'll definitely be back to this beach. We should have brought our swim suits, it's just that you don't always think to bring those when going to the Oregon coast. I didn't even have to wear a jacket this time.

Unless we plan an extended family trip every couple months we watch the weather and go on a day it's forecasted to be nice. DH had to go back to work on Tuesday and Monday looked to be the nicest day at the coast this week so it worked out perfectly.