Saturday, October 31, 2009

Where Are You From?

Thomas was working on his spelling homework the other night. One of the exercises is to write sentences with the words. The sentence he came up with for "grin" was "A smile is a grin." Cute sentence.

He was busy working, I was busy getting dinner ready.

"Mom, how do I spell smile?"

"Sound it out. You can do it."

"S-M-I... What comes next?"

"Sound it out, Thomas."

"S-M-I-Y-U-L-L!"

Um, not quite. Only, exactly how it sounds when he says it. I set him straight while laughing at his serious southern drawl. Phonetics can be quite interesting when you have a bit of an accent.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

The Good Mom

In my head I have all these ideas of what makes a good mom. Some I learned from my mom, others I came up with from seeing other moms, some from what society says makes a good mom, and others from who knows where.

What makes a good mom, at least in my little head?
  • feed the hooligans
  • drive them to school
  • help with homework
  • provide clean clothes
  • bake cookies
  • do fun crafts and other exciting activities
  • make Halloween costumes
  • happily teach throughout life
  • read scriptures together
  • say family prayers
  • hot breakfast on the table each day
  • cute notes in your lunch box
  • make pajamas for Christmas
  • play games
  • good nutritious dinner on the table
  • calm in the face of disasters
  • patient in all things
  • puts everyone to bed on time with hugs and songs
  • has endless ideas to teach and nurture
  • makes sure teeth are all brushed and clean
  • kids are neat and clean
  • teach about the world
  • attend all meetings and activities
  • be on the PTA
  • serve as room mom
  • help with field trips
  • posts on the blog regularly
  • takes a shower each day
  • has clean walls, with no sharks on them
  • maintains a spotless house
My list could go on and on and on. Unfortunately, I seem to be lacking in many of these qualities. However, I don't feel like I am the bad mom either. My kids seem happy. Dirty, but happy. We have fun. We teach and learn from each other every day. They smile, even if they do have fur on their teeth.

What have I learned from being a mom? We are all different and good moms in our own way. Those qualities that may seem to make us a good mom, don't necessarily make it so. We do the best we can with what we have. If I try to be everything I think makes me a good mom, I will never sleep and will not be a good mom. I can't do and be everything all the time. Doing things to say they are done isn't the point. My hooligans don't have a checklist for what makes me a good mom, only I do. The priority is not the stuff or great things, but the time and the quality.

I am far from perfect, but I love my hooligans and I do the best I can for them. Hopefully, in the end, they will think I was a pretty nifty mom. They will remember that I tried to be a good mom. There will be no doubt that they are loved. Wrestling on the floor and eating brownies for lunch are far more important that many of the "important" things in life. My house may not be perfect, but it is a home. And a loving home and family far outweigh being the good mom in my head.

I can now check playing with the hooligans, good dinner, somewhat clean and dressed for church, and blogging off that list, for today. Now to do the dishes. Oh, wait, my fabulous husband took care of that while I edited his paper. Life is good.

Monday, October 12, 2009

What to Write?

I am trying to post every day. Sometimes that is much easier said than done. Yes, I have past posts to get on here still, but I just shut down my computer that has the pictures on it.

Today...

I tried to do something fun for the kids for lunch. I cut up fun stuff like apples and bananas and cheese and hot dogs. I put it all into a muffin pan. In theory, the kids would think it was fun and exciting. In reality, they ate most of it. They put ketchup on apples, cheese on bananas, and all sorts of odd and gross combinations. Then they started launching it across the kitchen. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea.

On a fun note, I have a double jogger. I inherited it and can't wait to try it out. Maybe I can even get back into running again. When I put Jerry in it and asked if he liked it, he said NO. Tough turkey kid, you have to ride in it anyway.

Thomas had Flat Stanley for school over fall break. I'll explain later. We got fun pictures of Stanley doing various activities and Lolly even took him on a road trip. I sent the pictures to Target to get them printed and my fabulous husband was going to pick them up. When he went to get them, they were nowhere to be found. Turns out the online hosting site is having issues. Sorry Thomas, you have to wait 24-48 hours to get your pictures.

Happy Monday!

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Boys and Football

The hooligans and my fabulous husband are watching football together. Channel surfing ensued and this is where they ended up. I'm not sure the hooligans understand football, or any sports for that matter. I certainly have never figured out the game. Rugby was definitely more interesting and easier to figure out and certainly moved faster thanks to not clock stopping. So fun, you really ought to watch it some time. Really. Legs like you have never seen, no protective gear, incredible legs. Did I mention the unbelievable legs on those guys. My trainer played rugby. It fascinates me.

Back to American football.

Interesting comments...

"Those guys are the best!"

"I like the yellow guys. I mean the gold."

"I like football."

"What are they doing?"

I have to agree with the what are they doing comment.

And now they are all sitting in the toy bins, on the blue carpet. I feel a round of boats or pirates or something of the sort coming on. Just the kids, not the husband playing this game. I don't have a bin that would work for him. He also doesn't like to smash his knees up into his nose for the sake of an imaginary game.

Thursday, October 08, 2009

Tiger Pirate or Pirate Tiger?

We had a great day today. We had the opportunity to help out some other people and the kids went along and were most helpful. After dinner and showers we even watched a movie. Even better, I only had to go upstairs once to get them to go to sleep.

And now, for some not so recent pictures. These came up on the screen saver today and I thought they were cute, so I decided to post them.

I seem to have a vast number of pictures that have fun stories that I plan to post, yet somehow never do. Maybe I will make a habit of posting older pictures and stories. Rats, when I do that, it just leaves more recent ones on the wait list and then I get behind again. Be prepared for pictures in no chronological order but with cute or fun or pointless stories to come.

Yeah, that sounds like fun.
This was back in January 2009. Pirate Jerry took Tiger Michal's ears and found himself quite cute and funny. I especially like the orange bowl and camera case he chose to use as accessories.


Oops, seems the tiger forgot to cover his legs. Or maybe his mom is just too much of a slacker to do the snaps after changing a diaper.

Oh dear, I seem to see a problem here. The tiger is studying the antics of the pirate. Looking back, I see where he learned his tricks. Perhaps if I had studied them earlier, Michael would not have learned so much and be creating so much trouble now. Maybe not. Big brothers are supposed to pass all their skills and tricks on to younger brothers.

YIKES! Somebody give that tiger a hair cut! Why on earth do I let my kids get that scraggly ragamuffin hair before I cut it? It looks so cute at the time. Then I see a picture and want to photoshop their hair shorter.

Enough with the nostalgia of 10 months ago. Back to reality and the loads of laundry that need to be done and the groceries to put away and the kitchen to sweep. At least I unloaded the dishwasher earlier.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

How Was Your Morning?

My hooligans were so good this morning. They were playing and laughing in their room and having fun. It was a great morning.

WRONG

I went in to let them downstairs for breakfast and discover a nightmare.

Chocolate footprints all over the floor. A pint of Chocolate Cookies and Cream ice cream partially eaten and partially melted next to the closet. Sticky door knob. Two very guilty hooligans.

It seems that Jerry snuck downstairs and got my ice cream and a spoon. He then took them upstairs and began to eat. And everyone knows that ice cream is better on your TOES. Yes, he stuck his TOES in the ice cream. Then he pranced his little self all around the room. Moms just love to find chocolate footprints all over the room. We live for it, don't you know?

A side view of the little prints and spills. There were more all around the room, but this was definitely the point of origin. Can you see the little toes. Wait, I see some hand prints too.

Do you have a carpet cleaner? If not, you should invest. My little scrubber has revived many a carpet.

An hour into cleaning most of the prints were gone. All that remained was the worst of it. My knees were soaking wet.

I just love cleaning carpets first thing in the morning.

Poor little Michael got the short end of the stick too. I couldn't let him out of his bed because I knew he would add more little footprints to the scene. So he sat in his bed yelling "Maaamaaaa" over and over.
In the end, I think I won. After almost 2 hours. There is one little spot left in the picture, but I killed that one with some Spot Shot soon after. I used almost an entire bottle of cleaner and made countless trips to the bathroom to dump out the nasty chocolate/cleaner mix or to refill the cleaner dispenser.

Don't you just love my little carpet cleaner? The not-so-baby is quite the nice touch to the cleaning process as well. Just look at those legs. Once I turn the cleaner on he can't get away fast enough.

If you look really close, you can see the purple sharks still on the wall.

Not only did I have to clean up the mess, but I had to try and fix my little cleaner. Somehow something got stuck in the spray line. It came out, but only a little at a time. I was shooting cleaner all over the floor. There was no telling which direction the spray was going to go. Yeah, just a bit frustrated with that one.

I still have my two older children. My carpet survived another disaster. I have more ice cream in the freezer. I smell like carpet cleaner. My knees are still wet. My bum is soaked from sitting on the wet carpet. I didn't get breakfast. My children are forbidden from entering the kitchen for the rest of their lives. I have a headache.

Maybe I will banish my children to tents in the back yard. Then it won't matter if they prance around with chocolate ice cream on their toes. Oh, wait, they would run into the street chasing a bug or the ice cream truck. No bugs, Jerry is afraid of them, but definitely the ice cream truck. Shhhh, don't tell Child Protective Services about my tent city and chain gang children in the back yard.

Moral: Laughing children are just as dangerous as quiet children.

I wanted to use a brown font in honor of the chocolate ice cream, but it looked just a bit gross, so purple it is today.

Now, I will go and clean their stinky boy bathroom and do more laundry.

Monday, October 05, 2009

I Have a Surprise for You

Thursday morning I informed the hooligans I had a surprise for them. I had been planning for a while, but prefer to wait until as late as possible to tell them. Something about "is it time yet" or "I'm ready to go" constantly coming out of their cute little mouths in whining tones makes the planned trip less than enticing for me.

We were all playing on my bed when I told them I had a surprise for them. Of course, they got all kinds of excited and wanted to know what the surprise is. I decided to have fun with it.

I whisper to Jerry "We're going on a trip."

Jerry: We're going on a trip?!?!
Me: Yep
Thomas: Are we going to the dinosaur trail? (he could hardly contain himself with excitement)
J: No, that's too scary.
T: No *with that you silly boy tone of voice* they're models *duh, everybody knows that*
J: Oh, ok *smiles and laughs*

Then I tell them where we are going...
Me whisper to Jerry: We're going to ride horses
J: We are?!?!
M: Yes
J: I have to go tell Thomas! (Thomas was sitting right next to him)

A few minutes later...
J: I want to ride a black horse
T: I want to ride a magical horse

And so the morning continued.

We had lots of fun on out little mini adventure. More details and plenty of pictures to come. For now, I have to deal with whiny children who keep annoying each other and thus annoying me. At least I made yummy cheesy bread braids. Yeah, more to come on that one too.