Heard around our house today....

"Mom, we're going to China!" - Lauri

"Okay, have fun!" - Me

Edited To Add:

It only took minutes from me hearing/posting this to turn and see all my ottomans, couch pillows, and blankets turn into a makeshift

"After this, we're going to Rome to fight off barbarians!" --Lauri

Let's just hope we don't reenact any Colosseum fights. :)

Why I'm a dork and why I should never have had boys

Those are two different things :)

Why I am a dork...hmm...let's see...my most exciting purchase in awhile?? The white board I bought at Office Depot yesterday that stretches about 3X4 feet across my wall over our school table. I got multi-colored markers and assigned each child a color. I wrote a note to my "students" in case they got up before I did (and of course, all but one slept in).



My other exciting ideas of the weekend revolve around turning our food consumption into mainly "whole" foods. Reducing the amount of processed junk we eat. I couldn't wait to go to the grocery store. There was just this little thing called Pay Day which doesn't arrive until Wednesday holding me back. The kids and I came up with our own ideas for homemade granola bars and breads to bake.



Why wasn't I cut out to be a mother of boys??? Well, let's say this: I'm making dinner. The kids are all outside playing. I look out my kitchen window and see Gavin standing next to our shed (away from everyone else) and *ahem* "water" my dirt back there. Seconds later he is joined by Eli who is not as casual about it and completely drops his pants, joining his brother. None of the five other kids in the backyard even notice what they're doing. They both finish, pull up/zip up their pants, and run off- barefoot. Ugh. I didn't even know what to say. I didn't want to draw attention to it, and I wasn't (and still aren't) quite sure how to discipline this. Boys will be boys, right????

Music Literacy

We are very informal in our music appreciation and very eclectic. One week it might be only Vivaldi playing during lunch, the next Celtic Women, and the next the radio. The kids are exposed to all kinds of music- country, pop, classical, folk, "oldies", musicals. Pretty much anything and everything. They get their dose of pop culture from watching American Idol, Food Network, and yes, the occasional Disney Channel show. The girls' two favorite cds right now are The Beatles and Fergie.

So, I finally sat down to make a mix cd last night. I have a couple *days* worth of music in Itunes, so my selection was very varied. I put in my new cd last night, and "You Give Love a Bad Name" is the first song. Alyssa looks at me and says, "I know this song, its from Jesus Christ Superstar, right?" Uhh....not quite sweetheart, but good try.

Weed of Love

This is a symbol of love around our house. Every time my boys go outside, they bring me in at least one dandelion. I have collections of dandelions all through the house- a cup in my bedroom, one in the garage. I find them in my pockets all the time. I've had to clean them out of the dryer lint screen.

The dandelions drive Brett crazy. He hates the way they make our lawn look, but when he mentioned spraying our lawn to get rid of them, the boys were very upset. They think of our yard as a garden, not a harvesting spot for yellow weeds.

I think I'll try and convince Brett to let the lawn go- at least for this summer. Maybe next year, bringing Mommy flowers multiple times a day won't be as attractive to my ever-growing boys. Then we can have a "perfect" lawn.

Just because

I noticed how bland my blog looks, and I don't have time to fix the blog settings. Here's a picture for your enjoyment:

Yes, we sometimes still dress alike :)

I may be a mean mom, but my house is clean!

The day started off not like a typical Friday. Usually, around here, Fridays are met with enthusiasm, energy, and excitement. Today, we all woke up cranky. Maybe it was because of the cloudy, cool weather, yet again. Maybe it was because mom didn't sleep so well. Maybe it was due to a busy week. The fact is we were all dragging our heels. We got the basics done in school: Grammar, Math, and Spelling. Lauri did Science; Alyssa did History. I called it a day at that. Then I did something drastic: I locked the kids in the basement.

Okay, not really *locked* them in the basement, so to speak, but shut them down there with explicit instructions to come get me if someone was bleeding or if something was on fire and that was about it. We spent almost all of last weekend cleaning out/rearranging those two rooms downstairs, and now they had plenty to do in plenty of space. I warned them that if I was to be needed for any disagreements that I would start to reconsider our six-weeks-at-the-lake summer plan. They were bickering and pestering each other all morning, so I figured this was an opportunity to show them that they can get along.

Step two was to turn on my Ipod. I can do anything while listening to my Ipod. Especially when I had just downloaded new music on it. Sure, I looked silly dancing around my kitchen (doing a little moonwalking) to Michael Jackson, and maybe I belted out some Grease 2 songs a little too loud, but when those ear buds go in, the world gets shut out.

Step three was to try a new approach to cleaning. I am a very random person (maybe part ADD?). When I look for clothes, I dart through the aisles going back and forth. When I'm at the bookstore, I jump from section to section and back again. So, I tried this with my cleaning- start with laundry, there's always laundry to do with seven people in one house, then begin straightening my room. Go down and finish up lunch dishes, sweep real quick, then head to the schoolroom, back up to my bathroom- vacuum the girls' room so Lizzie could take a nap, clean the kids' bathroom, do a little deeper clean in the kitchen, another load of laundry, vacuum the schoolroom, finish the last bathroom, trash out, put some more things away, finish up my room, start to tackle the living room.

For anyone keeping track, the boys' room was intentionally avoided. We worked so hard last week in our room, the girls' room, the computer room, and the two basement rooms, that the boys' room was completely ignored. I desperately need to clean out their closet and dressers, their toys, their stuffed animals, but I'm procrastinating. I need another burst of "nesting". (NOT a pregnancy-induced version).

Amazingly, the kids held up their end of the bargain. They stayed downstairs, with only one instance of Gavin scaring the cr*p out of me. Imagine yourself completely unable to hear due to your Ipod blaring, scrubbing a toilet, when all of a sudden out of the corner your eye, you think you see something. And there's Gavin just standing there staring at me. He can give you this blank stare that rivals those of kids in horror flicks.

Now I'm off to make some yummy enchiladas that we'll eat after we go to the Y which we'll do once Brett is home. So, not a bad end to a crummy start of the day, just wish the sun would come out!!!