Three out of five Birthdays within a week of Christmas.

The twins were born on the twenty-first with Kate born on the twenty-seventh. It's been suggested to me, that I was somehow being responsible for this phenomena planned poorly on the births of my children. I have to laugh since the twins were actually due on Valentines day. Since we fought to keep them in as long as possible, personally I take great pride of them baking until almost Christmas. We could have had them two months earlier, and had micro-preemies.

Well, Kate, Kate we left entirely up to the Lord. My cycles being extremely erratic, at least during this point of time they were, other then charting, there wasn't much we could do. And I stink at charting.

I was actually due January ninth with Kate. However she came when she was suppose too, so two days after Christmas it was.

Of course the end result is a very busy week with Christmas sandwiched in the middle. So I thought I'd focus on Birthdays and tackle Christmas in it's own entry.

The twins turned three. Of course turning three means nothing to them. They've hit this huge milestone and all they know is, they got to eat cake. That and everyone kept saying Happy Birthday, so much so they often repeated it at random, not grasping that it specifically meant something for them.

The twenty-first was on Sunday, which was highlighted by the Christmas program at church. Personally the Christmas program is the highlight of the year for me. The focus on spiritual music that focuses so much on Christ's birth just leaves me feeling so full, so uplifted. Actually when I had the twins, I was released from the hospital on Christmas Eve and that Sunday there was only Sacrament meeting with the Christmas program. I went and sat and enjoyed every second of the program. My friends thought I was nuts, sitting through a meeting four entire days after my c-section, but after three months (that's worth repeating) three months of bedrest and isolation, I NEEDED that program.

In some ways I needed that program this year. Sacrament meeting is so hard for us and I've struggled with staying when it's such a battle with the kids to keep them reverent. Hell, reverent is the wrong word. To keep them from shouting/fight/killing each other would be more accurate some Sundays. We do have some basic quidelines that help. Kate isn't allowed to sit next to me, she gets physical with any sibbling that touches me when she's laid claim to me. We sit in a long middle bench taking up the entire space in case Ean should want to lay down, because he'll kick a sister or brother if he feels crowded.

We just don't have enough hands and some Sundays go ok, some we fight through and some we give up.

I had high hopes for the Christmas program since I know my children all love music. The twins are now singing at the drop of a hat. Both of them. We understand less from Greg, but when he rattled off Eh moo moo moo moo moo, Eh moo moo moo moo moo moo, Eh E I E I Oooohhh It was very obvious he was singing "Old McDonald had a farm".

My hopes were stymied by Sister Bunce in the row behind us. Sister Bunce an eccentric older woman with very strong ideas on pretty much everything. For reasons I cannot fathom, Sister Bunce sat behind us with a lap full of candy shooting daggers at my 36 month old boys when they tried to beg for some. Greg's world ended several times.

I am not saying someone should give my children what they have at church. Nor am I saying that for whatever reason, Sister Bunce shouldn't have had her candy, but to sit in a family ward with small children and not even *exasperated hand motion* try to be discreet, but scowl at the small children you've put in an uproar... Well lets just leave it at, we left early, so much for the Christmas program.

The clueless boys were happier when we got home. I made dinner, home made mac and cheese, which was wolfed down by everyone except the twins. Apparently this was their day to be picky. Per my husbands request because he's announced he'd rather eat a box cake mix then my homemade cake crazy man, I made pumpkin bars for dessert. We took the kids to Kent's parents so they could share the great blowing out of candles. The twins still couldn't figure out this was actually their day. You can tell this from the pictures.



This pretty much captures the evening. What? Is something going on?? This is what happens when you celebrate with language delayed kids that have no clue what you're talking about.

However, they did decide the candles were a good thing.



David understood candles are to be "blown out" and started on his the very second we started singing. Ean was very prompt to go and chew David out the very second "Happy Birthday" was over for doing it wrong! I had to let Ean know it really was alright. Greg on the other hand, had a hard time getting his out. Of course he was kind leaned W A Y back and blowing very softly. It reminded me a little bit of how my older brother use to blow out candles. Greg finally got it, and just seconds before three older sibblings were about to jump in and do it for him. Dessert was a hit and of course the consumption of dessert meant it was now time for presents.

I had gone shopping about a week before. I had held off, not quite sure what to get them. I had long ago with Kate decided to do everything in my power to separate Christmas presents from Birthday presents. I make sure there's not themes or stuff that goes together. It seems kind of odd but I feel better knowing we're not just clumping everthing together.

You know, I felt Kate was hard to make sure she felt special on her birthday, the twins are worse. Not only is there the challenge of making sure their birthday is seperate from Christmas but twins struggle with naturally being grouped together. Everything is always the same for both. Some people struggle with referring to them as single individuals lazily choosing to refer to them as a unit. So making each individual feel special is my new challenge. Luckily they're still young. This will get harder as they get older.

I don't know when the time for individual gifts will become appropriate but for now, double is easier because of the non-stop fighting due to their age. I'll try to take cues from them as they grow and mature. I felt pretty safe this time around going shopping at Cal-Ranch down the John Deere isle. I bought these cute sets with animals, tractor, combine, fencing. Way cute!

Here they are opening them.



They slept with their tractors until the Christmas presents showed up. *laugh*

Poor Ean really struggled. His Birthday isn't until May and it's hard to understand why everyone gets presents except him. As he matures he'll appreciate his birthday a whole lot more.

Except for Sister Bunce, the twins enjoyed their day even if they didn't understand it.

Fast forward to today, and Kate the Great turning Eight. The big eight, KATE knew what was going on, lol. We took Kate sledding with a friend. We actually went on Kent's parents road. It's a gentle slope and since we have so many teeny guys, it gave the option of actually going inside if anyone got to cold. Kate's guest left her gloves at our house, so I lent her mine. I didn't actually go sledding. Without gloves, I ended up running inside and out with the camera to get pictures of the kids.

Greg loved sledding!!! He stayed out there for a very long time sledding over and over with his daddy. The big girls lasted the longest, David lasted the shortest. David went on two runs and decided cars at grandmas sounded like more fun.

I brought the ugliest cake up. It was heart shaped, the top uneven, roughly shaped with the pinkest icing that I lost control of all over the cake. Uh, yeah, I'm not winning any cake decorating awards. Of course Kate had to go in and tell her grandma "hey look, I have THE ugliest birthday cake EVER!"

*blush*

Thanks for sharing that tidbit with your grandma Kate!

I haven't downloaded pictures of Kate from today, I'll have to do that another time. Kate seemed to be quite pleased with her dress, dolly, poster and Hannah Montanna game. It's really getting hard to shop for these bigger girls. It'll be interesting to see how their tastes evolve as they get bigger.

Surely it can't get worse then Hannah Montana!

The big exciting weekend (and inevitable tree destructions)

After much debate, we decided to have a tree this year. Friday we hauled out one of the store's old beater trees and put it together as a family. Or rather, I hollered at little boys running around with tree parts as Kent did whatever the heck he was doing and the girls danced excitedly and my friend Kim helped where ever it was needed.

This included letting me know where I was confused on how to set up the tree.

Luckily Kent had multiple trees because the first box I opened was missing part of the stand. I had the tree branches sorted, the box was empty and there were only two parts of the stand. Lovely. So out came the other tree and we combined the two for one frankentree. It didn't look bad.

Kent proceeded to drag out some lights, I found some garland and with my helpers pulling and tugging, I wrapped white lights around the whole tree and with the one colored strand, loosely zig zagged it up the front. The effect was charming. A white lighted background with sporadic dots of color. I really liked it. Of course there was one corner segment that was blinking. The kids liked that... *laugh*

Then I took out my garland, white with silver dots, and wrapped the whole tree. The effect went from charming to stunning. Suddenly our tree looked as if it was covered in snow with lights peaking out from behind. I finally took my Swedish flag garland that I'd made four or five years ago and put that on. It really didn't fit but I wanted something personal on the tree. We were not digging our keepsake ornaments out. Absolutely not. I want to keep those as long as possible and well, I know my boys.

Kent moved the kitchen tv and dvd player into the front room and we watched Kim's copy of Wall-E, while constantly reminding Kate that if she made "Wall-E" noises, she'd get sent to bed. Well almost everyone watched. Greg was asleep on the floor and I went for a walk. My legs were itching for movement and I had to spend a little time away from my children. I love them dearly but it had been a long day.

I came back before the movie was over, changed Greg while Kent informed me I was a miracle worker because I got him ready for bed including teeth being brushed without him getting ticked at being disturbed. I think Kent was just buttering me up so he won't have to do it next time. Finally some very tired kiddo's went to bed.

Saturday was a big day. We were having a big girls day out at the local rotary club's sponsoring of the nutcracker. Kate's a wanna be ballerina so this was a very big deal for her. Marja, her daughter Maryah, Marja's friend Melonie and Melonie's two children along with Kim and my girls all sat together to watch the performance. We sat far left right in front of the stage. The bad, we weren't able to see the footwork in the last 2/3rds of the stage however we did get to see expressions as the performance progressed and that was amazing. Also, we were five feet away from the Rat King coming out of the stage. Talk about children with big eyes!!!! There was smoke blowing towards us and he towered right above us before starting in his part. I loved it. *smile*

By the time the Sugar Plum Fairy came on, Kate was whispering a wardrobe wish list. She had at least a half dozen dance costumes on her list, hopefully when she had her recital in January, her costume is uber girlie and pink, being pink would help.

We rounded out the performance with ice cream at Farr's. I know, snow on the ground, bitter wind but I suggested ice cream. All those fun flavors at only a buck a cone, it's hard to turn it down. I went ahead and treated everyone. Not that we're swimming in the dough but I seldom get to "do" nice things for my friends and this seemed like a great opportunity. Not to mention I actually had money in my wallet and it was burning a hole in my pocket.

When we arrived home, I noticed that the garland on the tree looked a little rough. Sure enough, the tree had taken four headers while we were gone. Kent, of course, had to grab the camera.







You may notice the tree is actually facing different directions in several pictures, it's as if the boys tried to "steer" the tree. Also, Jesse looks pretty desperate trying to say Honest, it wasn't me. *laugh* Here we have proof why we didn't go all out. We knew, KNEW this would happen. Maybe next year we can put the pretty tree and decorations up again. We'll have to see.

The other big happening while we were at the Nutcracker. Poor Ean thought it was incredibly unfair that he was left out. Kent said he cried for a half hour, how sad is that???? So Kent in his infinite daddy wisdom, took the tops off two broken VCRs and let Ean go to town. Kent said he was at it for five hours at least.







Does that boy's daddy understand his son or what?? *laugh*

The weekend finished off with sending Kim on her way, and going up to Kent's parents where Jane occupied herself by making a fifteen foot paper chain for the Christmas tree.

I'm not making any bets if it'll survive until Christmas.

Playing catch up, This, That and Everything.

My friend Kim is visiting until Sunday, as always it's wonderful to see her. We've been friends for a very long time. Actually we met when we were twelve at girls camp. Through church activities over the teenage years we kept in touch. We've cried through many bad men experiences and during my mission I broke the rules and arranged a fifty minute phone call because going a year and a half without talking was to much to bear.

Kim is single, has never been married, has no children and has always desired a life exactly opposite of what she has. She's grown to embrace the hand given to her but her biological clock is ticking and it pains me to see her realize that biological children may not happen.

I think that's why she enjoys coming here so much. She loves my children dearly and with the exception of Kate (who would not be charmed by Kimmy's energetic and fun nature as a baby, she did eventually warm up and now adores Kim.) all the others have warmed up fairly quickly to her visits. This time round Greg and David played shy for only 20 minutes or so before realizing what an inviting lap Kim has and that she'll gladly sing and play at the drop of a hat. She charms the little people and most certainly has charmed mine.

Kim will cheerfully change diapers, help someone with homework and load my dishwasher.

More important, she's there, no matter what. I know I can call, gripe, cry (and we have a long history of very good cries *laugh*) and she'll love me unconditionally.

In observing my children, Kim's commented on the boys delays, observing that they are extremely behind in speech. She commented looking at Greg that it'd sure be nice to know what was going on in your head. I would have to agree.

Speaking of speech, the boys will start Early Intervention January sixth. That's a Tuesday, they'll go Tuesday and Thursday from 8:00 am until 10:30 am. They can ride the bus both ways, the school district is legally obligated to provide transportation but due to the early hour, and the school being a whole five minutes away, Kent will drop the boys off to school and they will ride the bus home afterwards.

I have agreed to having the twins in separate classrooms. Apparently there's strong ideas on whether twins should be together or apart in school. Personally I feel it depends on the twins. No decision should be made without knowing the children involved. For my twins, being apart feels like the right decision. My boys do not suffer any anxiety from being apart and with Greg being less verbal with David, I want Greg to get more stimulation then he gets with his twin. David of course understands him perfectly, through whatever unseen twin connection they share. Being with others will hopefully give Greg a greater desire to communicate.

Ean was in early intervention and thrived there, easily testing out of the program by the end of the year (he still has an IEP for speech). I strongly suspect that Dave will do the same. Not the end of the this semester, that's only four months of school but by the end of next year.

I'll put in applications for head start in the spring. Who knows, maybe the boys will do both. I'm willing to wait and see.

Ean will start Kindergarten in the fall. I can't believe how grown up he's getting. Still have times when I can't understand him, but he is getting very grown up.

While blogging Greg decided to perform some kind of experiment involving dehydrated carrots, baking powder and my hot air popcorn popper. Not wanting to waste I just spent fifteen minutes sifting the carrots out of the baking powder. I wonder if Greg's mischievous nature comes from not being able to communicate, and the boredom that follows.

Anyway, it's cleaned up, I've updated the boys, Kim's loading my dishwasher and I have to take Ean to school. Kent picked him up and forgot his backpack. Head Start won't allow kids on the bus without their head start backpacks.

Dumbest rule ever!

For prosperities sake, the tale of Kate's eye infection.

Kate's eye infection actually happened two years ago however since I wasn't blogging at the time, the story has not been recorded. No better time then the present to fix that.

Kate was in Kindergarten, she actually was in full time (we have part time here) because she qualified for needing her help in her reading. I believe this occurred in February, but I may be off. I do however have the year right. The twins were here and just over a year. I remember how stressed I felt about needing to be able to nurse them. With David's vomiting, he still depended heavily on nursing.

Anyhoo, Kate came home from school and she acted tired. I noticed her eye was red and thought, dang, she's getting pink eye. It was a Thursday so I was relieved we were going into the weekend so it wouldn't go interfere with school to much. I sent the tired girl to bed and she woke up two hours later feeling slightly warm to the touch and her eye was really red. She went right to bed and in the morning she looked like this.



Holy wow! That was NOT pink eye. She obviously had an infection and she was very warm to the touch. I called the doctor and was able to get her in right after lunch.

Unfortunately since it was Friday, she wasn't able to see her regular doctor. She saw the other doctor in the practice. He prescribed an oral dose of amoxicillin, that I had filled immediately and given Kate her first dose by 2:00 pm. Kate was so sleepy, she went right to bed and didn't wake up until just after 7:00pm. The swelling was twice as big and she obviously was extremely sick. Kent was able to get to the immediate care center before closing and she received a shot of antibiotics and was sent home.

Once again exhausted, she fell asleep for the night and by morning, this is what we saw.



The poor child was unable to open her eye it was so swollen. It looked so painful and Kate, bless her heart, she pitches a fit at every little bump or bruise but when the painful stuff hit, she handled it like a trooper.

Kent's dad came over to help Kent give her a blessing. To say he was worried when he saw her would be an extreme understatement. After she had some breakfast, I do believe we allowed her to eat ice cream that am, her daddy took her to the emergency room. It was extremely obvious that the infection was immune to the types of antibiotics she'd already received within twenty-four hours.

I do have to throw in that Ean had this same type of eye infection the previous year but his responded extremely well to really brood range type antibiotic. The rate of growth that Kate was experiencing scared the crap out of me.

I found it frustrating to be at home when my instinct screamed to be with my obviously sick little girl but with four other children, two of which were extremely needy infants, I sat impatiently waiting at home.

When I called for reports, Kent filled me in but it wasn't the same as being there. After a few hours, there was talk about putting in an IV line and allowing Kate to come home, returning twice a day for IV antibiotics. However this no longer became an option when Kate received a CAT scan and it was confirmed that the infection had spread into her actual eye socket. Extremely dangerous because of the chance of the infection traveling along the optic nerve into the brain, Kate's only option was to be admitted for observation and aggressive IV therapy.

Kent was kind enough to share that Kate was charming the pants off the nurses and anyone else that came in to work on her. Kent's dad generously offered to spend the night at the hospital to make sure someone was there to be an advocate for Kate. With all the other kiddo's we took him up on that. Kate was admitted to the largest pediatric room I'd ever seen. For some reason there was one room at the end of the whole, bigger then my kitchen, that's where Kate was.

I was able to sneak away from home for a bit as she was admitted. She was the most cheerful child on the floor. All giggles and smiles, thrilled that I brought her favorite movies up. Oh and the gifts she was getting. Great fun, great fun! Getting blood samples taken only spoiled her mood for five minutes or so. The IV line was in, all they had to do was hook it up, so that didn't phase her and the wrap on her line was pink! She loved that!

Of course how dangerous this infection could be was beyond her comprehension and we didn't want to scare her. Actually, we didn't want to scare Kent's parents either, we planned on keeping the details to ourselves. Kent's parents tend to really panic and I mean really really panic. Unfortunately one of my in laws neighbors was a nurse on the peds floor and she filled Kent's mom in on the danger of the infection traveling through the optic nerve to the brain.

*Shaking head*

As predicted, they panicked.

Kate received six doses of IV antibiotics in twenty-four hours. Amazingly enough once Kate started to respond, her healing was extremely fast. About eighteen hours after her admittance, Kate was able to open her eye. We were thrilled!

During her time there, she saw a steady stream of doctors, all for different things. She saw an optomologist in case there was any damage to her eye. She saw an oral surgeon in case there was a need to lance and drain the infection site. There was at least three other separate doctors but for the life of me, I can't remember why they were involved.

Kate was released after about twenty-six hours in the hospital. Here she is after another day's mending.



She ended taking oral antibiotics for another two weeks after being released to make sure the infection was taken care of. The optomologist following her case was amazed that she suffered no ill effects and we skipped the follow-up appointment with the oral surgeon. We could hear the cha-ching of money slipping out of our wallet straight to all the outreached medical branches that needed payment.

It could have been so much worse.

I wonder if I should put a tree up this year.

We skipped last year. The year before, the tree was demolished. Wait, I do have pictures, *laugh*

First, there were only edible decorations on the tree. Asking for trouble? Maybe. But I sure wasn't putting my keepsake ornaments on with one year old twins and Ean, the destructo two year old.

Ean started by knocking the tree over, please note, most of the edible decorations had been digested the previous day. Ean is proudly holding part of the Christmas tree stand there.



Then the twins got into the act. Please note since the twins weren't walking, they greatly appreciated the tree being brought to their level. This was right before their first birthday. That's popcorn they're eating.





It was purely by chance the twins are festively dressed in green and red. It goes well in the pictures of the decimated tree though. Looking at those pictures, it's easy to see why last year we just never got around to putting the tree up. Last year on Christmas eve, we have a bright red crocheted blanket with holly on the corners (it was a wedding present, get married the sixteenth of December you get LOTS of Christmas-y sort of presents, *laugh*) We spread the blanket in the middle of the floor and piled presents on top. It actually looked kinda cool.

This year we are again facing the Christmas tree question. Should we even bother? The twins are another year older. At almost three, you'd think we'd have a decent chance of tree survival, ornaments are another story but maybe a tree alone could survive. We have to keep in mind that communication is a problem. With the comprehension delays on the boys, they (especially Greg) act more like and early two then an almost three.

A friend did suggest that we could hang a tree upside down from the ceiling. That's a great idea! The twins could swing from the tree, like red-headed tarzans!!! We are talking boys that scale shelves and move chairs to reach pretty much everything under the sun.

Holding off until the last minute was another suggestion. Personally I think it hardly seems worth the effort.

I guess we'll play it by ear. Really whats the worse that could happen? We could get even better pictures then the ones shown! WOOT!

Egads, I hate shopping

Some folks are natural shoppers. The thrill of finding a bargain. Browsing along isles, just to see what they have. Envisioning future purchases while feeling the edge of the credit card in your purse.

Oh yeah, that's so not me.

Shopping makes me grouchy. I find what I want as fast as I can and book it out of the store. Or at least that's how it would be if I didn't have to drag anywhere from one to five children along. And today, I had two. The youngest two. The two that are language delayed, low comprehension, act very immature. The ones I have to restrain from running into traffic, as they split in different directions. Just thinking about taking them to the store gives me an instant headache. Makes my legs hurt from the fatigue I know I'll feel when I'm done.

Today was no different.

I did have enough sense to put Ean on the bus first. I could have gone with all three boys. I've done it before. I've nearly always regretted it or at least came home with a few dozen more grey hairs but this time, I thought, I'd make it easy on myself.

HA

Boy am I foolish.

I should have realized how things were going to go when Ean announced he had to pee while waiting for the bus. Now the bus is very particular. Head start demands that the child be waiting at the curb, with their head start back pack when the bus arrives. The parent must be there with the child. Their game, their rules, so I follow the rules. Now Ean's bus had been coming late the past few weeks. Anywhere from five minutes to 25 minutes (the bus did break down and they had to get another bus on Tuesday). Oh not to today, today the bus was right on time, I saw it coming down the road the very second I allowed Ean to run in to pee.

I was talking with my mom on the phone when I started to yell Ean, QUICK, the bus is HERE!!!!

My mom quickly said to goodbye as I grabbed Eans hand, said a prayer he would make it to school and ran to the curb to meet the bus. At this point the bus was inching towards our house. For some odd reason the bus driver was leery of parking to let Ean on. Two year olds running loose on the sidewalk made him a little jumpy.

Now don't get me wrong, i appreciate his caution, it was just my day to be annoyed with every little thing and well, that annoyed me.

Got Ean on the bus, and rushed the twins to the suburban. I don't know why but David started to cry as soon as I buckled him in. We were going. He wanted to go. Buckling in is never optional for my children, I don't know why he was upset. Again feeling mildly irritated, I wished the child could just tell me what the problem was.

You know, I never had a problem with the other kids not communicating at thirty five months. Now I did have a problem understanding the older three, but never with them not comprehending, or speaking to me.

Dave cried the whole way to Wal-mart. Thankfully it's only a five minute drive and he perked up as soon as we got there. Actually both boys walking in the parking lot were extremely cheerful. Now they were both trying to escape so they could run free dodging the speeding junkers and souped up trucks, but they were cheerful while I dragged them along, only objecting every now and then.

It doesn't help that they're so short I have to stoop to hold their hands. Really, I'm 5'3'' and I have to stoop? Basketball players they won't be. I'm afraid they take after my dad.

We found a cart and they road the rest of the way into the store. From that point on the fun never stopped. There was climbing in and out of carts. Actually I turned my back at one point to get some juice on the very back of the shelf and when I turned around this woman was making sure Greg didn't crack his head open climbing out of the cart. Who ever you are, thank you! I wonder if I could have paid her to just follow me around helping the boys in and out of the cart...

While the boys exercised, I looked at the WIC checks and realized they were going to expire in three days. I had three checks, I needed to use them all. That meant three dozen eggs this trip. Well we were out of eggs, that's not a bad thing but, with the twins all over the cart there literally was no place to put the eggs where they would be safe. I opted for the seat and spent the rest of the trip keeping David from climbing in on top of them.

I had to open seven cartons before I found a carton without any broken eggs in it. Sheesh and I hadn't even let the boys near the eggs, it really looked like their work too. Like a twenty eight pound kid had climbed up and elbowed and kneed every other carton. I swear they were in the cart. And after all that hard work to find the cartons, I wasn't going to allow a child to break the ones I had.

Getting the last few items, Greg climbed out of the cart again and ran around me. Literally around me. That is until he saw apples and ran to grab one. I had to leave David in the cart with the eggs unsupervised while running after Greg. I reached him just as his teeth penetrated the apple skin.

Uh, guess I was buying a few apples today. Why a few? Because honestly I couldn't buy one apple with two boys. That wouldn't work at all. Greg's day was ruined when i wouldn't allow him to eat his prize then and there, choosing instead to make him wait while I paid for the apples.

I put Greg back in the cart, picked a check out lane and didn't realize the gal in front of me was letting her little girl eat saltines.

Great.

Just what I needed.

With a cry of COOKIE Dave let half the store know HE was being starved. While working on Dave I failed to see that Greg was within a centimeter from actually scoring a candy bar. Luckily I spotted him before he scaled the cart to grab more booty. At this point I still hadn't paid for his previous ill gotten game.

The six minutes we waited in line felt three times as long, as David noticed there was candy and I had to continuously block escape attempts. Good gravy, I could barely keep up!

The gal in front of us took pity and gave me a package of saltines to feed the boys. I could've kissed her! That was incredibly nice and it did help the boys settle down while I checked out.

Keep in mind I needed to check out four times. I had three WIC checks and some other groceries as well.

I gave the boys their apples, said a little prayer they wouldn't get sick and discovered that my groceries didn't fit back in my cart. I'm serious. You know how a cat can lay in the center of a queen sized bed and leave no room for you to actually lay down? Well that's the twins were like in the cart. Even though every grocery I had before had been in the cart, for the life of me, I couldn't seem to fit it back in. I finally resorted to standing the boys up, praying they wouldn't throw apples at anyone or try to climb out with their hands full and stacked stuff around them.

We made it out of the store and I needed a nap later to recover. I keep telling myself this stage is only temporary but it's not working. I still get depressed thinking about going back to the store.

On the lighter side, the twins both have a new word. When looking at Christmas lights tonight both boys exclaimed AWESOME everytime they were impressed. Which was often. *laugh* Greg was as nearly as impressed with Santa earlier.

*shrug*

Oh well, I wasn't impressed with Santa either at that age and my mom has the picture to prove it.

Kate the Great and general school updates

Well the game plan changed. Kate's speech teacher retested her on the vocabulary that she had scored so low on and well, she did fine. So Kate's been discharged from speech. The big worry is that she no longer has that IEP umbrella to cover any special help she needs. The good news, she's making progress on her reading and I don't think it'll hurt her in the least.

*YAY*

She's still behind in her reading but what we're doing is working. She's slow but it's no longer so painfully slow like at the beginning of the year. With the motivation of a movie rental dangling before her, Kate even scored 101 (she got a bonus word) on her spelling test. I am so proud of her. Really, I've always known she's a smart kid, it's just that she's never realized she's a smart kid. So now she's catching up and we'll see what the future holds for Miss Kate.

The little boys, I just don't know. I don't recall if I posted their testing last month but they were tested and low and behold, they don't qualify for occupational therapy, all they qualify for is speech. Now the test was twofold because it's also used for EI qualifications. There's two standards that kids can qualify. Either a deficiency in two areas, which all the other kids have done or one deficiency that's really REALLY bad. I can't explain the scoring, I just know the numbers.

For the two deficiency, the number is -1.5 and for the one deficiency the number is -2 or greater (less than because it's a negative?). Both boys are extremely delayed in speech and have big negative number. So they qualify for EI. I know this because I'm not a newb with the system. I've had three children in EI so far. Every child of mine and the numbers were explained to me with Ean who qualified with a two area deficiency but would have qualified under speech alone.

My big frustration, the gal who did the test on the boys, cheerfully announced they dont' qualify for EI, which I know is wrong. She's an occupational therapist, so qualifications aren't her speciality, testing is what she does but she has told everyone associated with the twins cases that they don't qualify including their case worker. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr. Now I've heard from no less then five individuals how well the twins are doing while I know that not only do they qualify but they need the extra services.

Especially Greg. Gosh I can't even talk about it without boobin. Greg has been so frustrated with speech when he feels like he's not understood he's started pounding his head on the floor. I cannot express as a mother how heartbreaking it is to see your child inflicting pain on himself.

I'm not a newbie with speech therapy. My family has a long history, and I'm not just talking my kids here. Two brothers with extreme speech problems, my oldest brother is still virtually non-verbal as a thirty nine year old adult. Then throw in my own kids, Jane's extreme speech, lacking grammar and syntax, the jargon she inserted into words, the random order of words not to mention the apraxia, not being able to pronounce anything at the age of four. Kate's wasn't as bad but she still couldn't be understood at four, then Ean, his constant hearing problems, three sets of tubes. Throw in the classes I took at college and well as I stated, I'm not a novice here.

The usual speech techniques are not working with Greg. Modeling, games, adding words, non of it is working.

You can't tell me that speech alone will be enough for this child, he needs the pre-school environment, what I'm doing is not enough. Lord knows I'm trying and it's frustrating to know that as a mother, I cannot provide what he needs. Throw in all these people telling me that he's fine and well, I'm ready to bang my own head into the floor.

So I've been coaching myself, reminding myself that the meeting for the boys is on the seventeenth of this month. It doesn't' matter what they say, when the scores are laid out on the table, they'll both get pre-school. David doesn't have the same need, but he still is sufficiently delayed he qualifies just like his twin.

*Confessions* At Ean's IEP, I broke down into tears when the twins came up. You have to understand that Ean's head start takes place in the early intervention building and since Ean has a speech IEP (what kid of mine doesn't at this age), a lot of the same people will be there that will be at the twins qualification meeting, including the program director.

I hate losing it in front of people and it wasn't even for the child we were meeting for but the boys hair came up, cause everyone loves my three red headed boys and well, talking about when we'd meet for the twins brought all my frustrations with Greg up.

I haven't heard from the twins speech therapist in a week but when I see her either this week or the next she'll do an evaluation on the twins. I'll make sure she records her recommendation of pre-school for Greg. A note that the mother is overwhelmed might help too, just to make sure no one brushes my concerns aside.

So that's school, the good, well nothing really bad but the frustrating.

I feel like a case worker myself some days juggling every one's needs.

A frugal mothers DREAM Halloween!

It all started the beginning of October when my seven year old begged to be a ballerina for Halloween.

What? You would like to dress up in your old recital clothes to beg for candy? Seriously? ALRIGHT!!!! She did try to change her mind the week before but I kindly let her know that changing her mind wasn't an option. She took it well, and agreed that really, who wouldn't want to be a ballerina? *laugh*

Then my oldest, following all the original thought of a hip ten year old announced she wanted to be Hannah Montana. Now, no tank tops and mini-skirts for my girl. I did see a Hannah Montana "costume that was basically just a tank and mini. First, I am trying to install some values in my children and trampy dressing just isn't on my to do list. Second, we live in Idaho, where snow Halloween night happens every other year. It was unusually warm this year, no one felt like they'd get frost bite after 20 minutes outside but why take the chance? I had the girl wear her regular clothes with a wig. Easiest costume EVER.

The wild card, my four year boy was left out of the kids old enough to choose. Girls can be predictable, this free spirit that always leaves me guessing? He announced four days before Halloween he wanted to be a bat. Yes, a bat.

Hmmmmmm, he owns black sweatpants and a black shirt. I even found a batman t-shirt to put over the long sleeve shirt to help clue people in. Brainstorming with my good friend down the street, garbage bag wings became the obvious, cheap solution. Folding the bag in half, cutting scallops at an angle, open it up and voila, wings! I safety pinned the wings to his back and arms so he could actually flap. I also splurged and bought make-up, a family pack on sale at K-mart that allowed me to glitter the ballerina, glitter Hannah Montana and paint lips and eyes on the two girlies (oh they were in heaven!)

Then the boys make-up. I painted green circles around his eyes and painted his face black. I have no idea if it was really "bat like" but the important thing, Ean loved it! Upon completion he looked in the mirror and said really loudly (of course he says everything loudly) "I am you're BAT BOY!" It was to cute.

I bought the twins matching pumpkin outfits which David screeched and tried to pull off because it was humiliating. At least, that's what I'm going to assume he was saying if I could understand him. Greg objected for a few minutes and then didn't' care. Identical DNA, different boys and personalities.

The objecting pumpkin fell asleep in his dad's arms and slept through half the church party we were at. He promptly perked up when he realized the table we were at was decorated with candy corns.

There was a cake walk and my children all won way to many cupcakes. *laugh* They also got an incredible amount of candy and ate doughnuts at their grandparents house. They zonked good that night, I made sure to scrub teeth, Kent took all the good chocolate to work *laugh* and left the kids suckers.

Now until the candy is gone all that's left is enduring non-verbal two year olds dragging me over to beg for suckers. I can't wait till the candy is gone!!

Parent teacher conferences yesterday

I went to my girls parent teacher conferences yesterday and it was ok. Nothing really wrong but I have an odd feeling, just odd.

We already had a meeting over Kate about a month ago. Kate is really behind in her reading. She's tested about a full grade level below where she should be. All the tests they do now, it's really kinda crazy. I noticed with Jane, there was a huge panic over Jane's reading but on her own, when she was ready, she caught the reading bug. Jane's still a little bit behind her grade level but she's getting pushed by an awesome resource room teacher to do her absolute very best.

Anyway, KATE! Kate has an IEP for speech. Kate is beyond the point of needing speech but her speech teacher has hit her with all kinds of tests and she is deficiant in vocabulary. Ah-HA, a language deficiancy. What this means is that we can keep Kate in speech for a whole 'nother year. So she's still under the IEP umbrella which gives the school more cause to work at helping her with her reading and any other school issues.

We have an IEP meeting in a few weeks.

Now Jane. Jane's school work is going swimmingly. She's having a hard time adjusting to working alone and unsupervised but she's getting better at it. So glad.

Her teacher did express concern that Jane seems lonely and doesn't have any close friends. *sigh* This is heartbreaking for me as a mom. I remember being so lonely in fifth grade and I don't want Jane to experience that same lonliness. We'll try harder to get her together more often with friends.

So that was parent teach conference. All in all I felt much better then when I went to Kate's winter one last year and the teach informed me she had stopped working a month ago. *eye roll*

My Job

I know, I know. I already HAVE a job. It includes five children with daily needs that never end. The mothering never ends and yet, a job literally fell in my lap and it was as if I had custom ordered the job specifics.

First of all, I can't work during the day. Not right now. With three littles, the cost of daycare would eat up anything I made, so that is just not doable at this time. I can't work very long, since evening or nights are my only choice, and I have a family that needs taking care of during the day, I'd do a great disservice to those children if I couldn't function during the day from fatigue.

Let me explain first that my neighbor/friend's husband was cleaning this business center. Here in Pocatello it was the old Federal building that a few businessmen bought and remodeled. One of the investors/owners also has a cleaning center here in town specializing in his brand of cleaning supplies. Turns out the manager of the cleaning center wasn't fulfilling her duties, several "secret shoppers" had very bad reports and she was canned, my friend's husband was promoted to manager and suddenly the building needed a janitor.

Cleaning this building is part time work for one person. It takes about four hours 7 pm and 7 am to clean. You can pick and choose when you want to be there, as long as it's during that time and of course to clean the building for Monday, you have the whole weekend to choose when to go.

The job was offered to my friend and she said she'd only do it if I did it with her. That gives us each 10 hours a week, we can be done between nine and ten most nights when we work together and the flexibility to have someone cover the whole building if one of us is sick or out of town.

Perfect!

The pay is more then minimum and Kent's told that for the type of work we're doing, it's pretty good.

I do miss being home in the evening. The twins grab their shoes and try to put them on to come with me when they figure out it's time to go. This month due to Kent's schedule, he's teaching a ham radio class every Thursday night until ten, I have Thursdays off and work Fridays by myself. Last week was the first Thursday off so I was putting kids to bed. We watched a show and during the show Greg, who was sitting between my legs, kept turning around throwing his arms around my neck to hug me. I do believe that boy has missed me.

I'm only earning between $350 and $400 a month but this means that I can help with family expenses. I'm putting between $25 and $50 in savings every paycheck. I'm paying for Kate's dance and Jane's taekwondo. My mom has been paying for the kids fun stuff for the past year and this recession is hitting her hard since all her money is tied up in the market. It's nice to not have to ask.

I also get to pay tithing again. Oh I've paid here and there for the yearly craft show or a custom order that's come my way but it's been a long time, over a decade since I've had a steady paycheck. It's such a good feeling to pay tithing.

Talking with my friend, now working partner, I found out she pays tithing at her church too and she agrees with the blessings of tithing. She's been attending a baptist church that she and her family have really liked.

A few observations from work. There's a few state representative offices that we clean and you can tell an election is coming up. Some have been frantically cleaning house dumping huge amounts of files/papers/books/pamphlets. I'm guessing someone isn't running for another term.

Another observation, some offices just have a better feeling then others. There's a few offices that feel cold and I haven't quite figured out why. One office in particular doesn't have a nice feeling at all, but it's a pain in the arse to clean so I think that's possibly tainted my judgment. It's the only office with an alarm, W A Y at the other end of the office where we enter. There's 30 seconds to unlock the door, go to the next door which has a punch code, right under the This office keeps no cash sign, then down the hallway flipping lights so you can see, to punch the code.

Now a few problems with this scenario. The whole building is locked down with the only method of entering is through one door using a punch code. There's not random people from the street drifting in and out after hours. Throw in the sign about not having cash and one can start wondering why the frell it's necessary to have an alarm AND a punch code on the second door to actually get into the office.

Oh and the punch code sits right next to an open receptionist window, so someone could just hop over that if they really had a plot against this company. I just don't see it happening! lol

Last week someone left a note on the alarm for us to please vacuum the entire office.

That really kinda rubbed me wrong because it implies that sometimes we don't do the whole office, which isn't the case!! In the offices we do daily, we vacuum thoroughly about once a week. On other days we do main traffic areas and spot check individual offices. Because the alarm office is only twice a week we tend to be a lot more thorough when we go in.

My other pet peeve about them, they're pigs. Always food garbage in individual garbage cans, stuff overflowing from the break room garbage and that's the office most likely to spill stuff on the carpet.

Anyway, I'm a working woman again. Earning something, helping my family and building a job history again. Bonus, I'm getting exercise in while working and finally improved my diet enough I'm noticing a difference.

*WOOT* It's all good! *laugh*

Today is the first day of school

There's something magical about the first day. New notebooks, pencils, that nip in the air first thing in the morning.

Maybe it's the fact that my girls were ready 10 minutes after getting up? Oh yeah baby, that'll never happen again. *laugh* In a few days that 10 minutes will stretch out until we get to the shoving out the door with shoes in hand phase. I give 'em a week.

They also had all their clothes in piles on the couch. The end of last year 10 minutes before leaving they were still walking around in undies trying to decide what to wear. And lets not forget breakfast. I had to resort to "cereal in a sandwich bag" a few times last year. Of course that was amidst shrieks that they do serve breakfast at school. I don't know how many times I repeated that they don't serve breakfast after the late bell.

Would you believe it's October and I never published this? I don't know where my head is!

Also, the girls are still getting up and getting to school on time, frankly I'm amazed. *laugh* They ARE growing up!

Plus size clothing for children

Last year I was inudated with hand me downs the month after school started. I had spent about $150 on clothes for the kids, and well, we didn't really need it, so I decided not to do that this year.

I'm waiting a month and we'll see what we need after that.

I did decide to buy each girlie a new shirt for tomorrow, the first day of school, so they can feel "special". As I was browsing I noticed a whole line of "plus size" clothing. Wider then the regular fit.

Plus size clothing for kids?

It saddens me that we as a society have reached a point where it's so normal and in demand, over a third of the clothing available was plus size.

I know I struggle with my weight. I know I have my own demons but honestly they didnt' start until puberty hit. That hormonal change was hard on me. I can't imagine my child being fat.

Don't get me wrong, my kids have different builds and none are skinny as a rail but they're healthy weights, all of them. We limit tv, limit junk, offer veggies multiple times a day.

Actually my neighbor announced my kids were wacked when they stole my pea pods at the movies last week. Yes, they had popcorn, a splurge but the boys all opted to snack on my pea pods instead.

We're not perfect, not by far but apparently we're doing ok. Healthy kids growing into healthy adults, that's my aim.

I want to be clear I'm not talking about chubby toddlers and babies or even pre-schoolers that eventually even out from baby fat. That's a whole different relm. I was blessed with one of mine being an absolute chub and she did even out. I'm talking the kids that eat potato chips multiple times a week, play video and computer all afternoon. Kids that have lost their ability it imagine and play with nothing but their backyard and a pile of dirt.

Wasn't exercise something that just happened when we were kids? I remember playing tag, walking the dog, climbing up our tree in our backyard granted I climbed to read a book , but still, it was fifteen feet in the air to reach my perch?! Now exercise seems to be something that has to be planned. Soccer, T-ball, dance, martial arts, basketball or any team sport has taken the place of what use to just happen.

I turned off the tv's for the summer and it was wonderful. My kids played with friends, did their chores better and we even etched out some special time for each one during the day with me.

Why even at the boys last two wic appointments the focus was on exercise and getting kids to move. Of course my challenge is to get my boys to sit down and focus on reading, homework so it is a bit ironic.

I guess my gripe isn't with the market meeting demand but the blind acceptence of society in something that clearly needs to change and change starts at home!

You know I'll never forget when an aquaintence asked me how I got my kids to eat their veggies so well. I responded that while snacking on my own they'd ask if they could try and I'd make a point of sighing and saying I wasn't sure I wanted to share. They'd ask again and I'd grudgingly give them one or two, then they'd think they were fooling me by sneaking a few more. The young mom I was talking too quickly pointed out that my technique wouldn't work because she won't touch raw veggies.

Huh, and they won't eat veggies either?

So I guess if you want your kids to eat better, eat better yourself. If you want them to be physically active, do so yourself.

As I said, we're not perfect in our house, but we must be something right. My ten year old daughter can now do a chin up. I've never been able to do that, even as a kid! So we keep plugging away, and hopefully I can not only leave my children a legacy of healthy habits but healthy body imagines to boot.

They deserve the best.

Dirt, Mud and the all American boy.

I've decided that there is some genetic factor that draws the male gender (of all ages) to big powerful vehicles, loud booms as in guns/fireworks and mud. Yes I said mud. Why else would otherwise intelligent males take their big and powerful trucks up through the muck of the underbrush to shoot off guns?

And this gene kicks in early, Waaaaaaaay early.

Before having my own sons, I seriously thought that all this was a learned behavior taught from father to son. A sort of testosterone right of passage just a step below early tribal hunters teaching their boys to drag home dinner.

It's not taught, it's already there. I've learned that a 10 month old baby boy can make a gun out of anything. We're talking a kid that has access to more barbies then any manly man can imagine. Not just any barbies but pink and purple mermaid barbies with sparkly hair. When you have older sisters, you have access to these sort of pink girl objects and yes, even these can be made into guns.

Lets not forget legos, blocks and cars can all be made into guns. Outside of the house, sticks, rocks and even a real fierce piece of grass can be made into a gun. Oh yeah baby, watch out.

Now my husband does shoot em up computer games. He use to do the real bloody DOOM game with our oldest daughter on his lap. Oh she loved it, until she discovered pink barbies. Our second daughter decided princess Disney crap was far more interesting then the shoot em up games, which are now thankfully less bloody but still have their fair share of explosions and booms. The boys fight over who will sit in daddy's lap. This isn't quite the problem it use to be since the boys are able to restrain pounding on daddy's keyboard and sending daddy's trooper straight into enemy territory.

And the mud, oh the mud. In all fairness I believe mud to be a very natural kid thing and not just a boy thing but I believe boys relish mud in a way few girls can really understand. I think even if we don't mind getting dirty, us girls fail to understand the magic a good ol fashion mud hole contains.

Well my 30 month old twins understand. It's like a magnet for them, calling, beckoning from the back yard. It's physically impossible to just dip their toes in. Oh no, It's up to their hips, sitting right in the middle, fingers quishing through the center, like a dance. Small splatters of mud flying towards each other as the twins giggle with delight just feeling the texture of the muck.

Now why would I have such a mud pit in the backyard?

I don't believe anyone familiar with my children would be shocked the names Kate and Ean associated with the making of the mud pit.

The first creation of the mud pit led to such a mess inside my house. A half inch of dirt tracked across both my kitchen into the front room and down the stairs into the family room. Huge thick muddy hand prints down the hallways and the clothes, oh my the clothes. A huge and I mean HUGE load of clothes that won't even give a hint of what color they should be. The bathroom was destroyed, and this was only from the first venture into the mud pit.

The pit has been recreated several times.

The worst part is that the twins feel like they're being killed if I try to keep them inside while the pit is drying out. There are more sticks to make guns with outside. *eye roll*

It's easy to understand why staying inside would seem like some weird sort of torture.

If the twins get outside, I end up with two year old mud monsters, and although they are very happy mud monsters, it tends to stress me out. The kids of course can't seem to comprehend how much work it is to get the mud cleaned up but I know, oh boy do I know.

Some may find this hard to believe but my children lack some critical thinking skills, like if you throw mud at the house, not only will you get into trouble but then you have to clean up the mud and you'll be forced to abandoned the mud pit and not be allowed to play in it anymore. Oddly yelling at your mom that she doesn't allow you have any fun does not help your mud slinging case.

In all fairness, I should record that like my daughter (the guilty mudslinger) I was once guilty of throwing mud at our garage as a kid. My mom was about as pleased with me as I was with Kate. Kate doesn't need to know about that though. *smile*

Ean was in the pit during the mud throwing but he wasn't going to waste good mud by tossing it. He was to busy feeling it between his fingers. As I said, boys have an appreciation for fine mud that we girls just fail to understand.

Speaking of what calls out to a boy, the park we eat lunch at has an irrigation ditch that is full every Thursday. Yeah, I hate Thursdays.

We had a really cool first three weeks of summer, downright cold on the windy days. We've been biking to the park with me hauling my four year old and the twins in a bike seat and bike trailer. I don't exactly carry supplies so I was a bit unprepared the day Ean went swimming in the ditch and Greg fell in! I was worried they'd freeze all the way home.

Luckily I had a blanket I could put over the two boys in the trailer, they were naked, cause no point in wearing wet clothes. Up until this point Ean had ridden in the seat and the twins were in the trailer but that got switched around so Ean and Greg could snuggle under the blankets.

Oh Dave was so excited to ride in the seat. I call it the captains chair. *laugh*

SO the summer summery, boys love mud, bikes, mud, dirt, mud, guns and mud. It's been one wet and muddy summer so far. The boys have loved it but it hasn't helped me keep up with laundry.

This blog brought to you by Ean

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Who got onto my computer without permission.

*sigh*

Today is the first day of summer vacation!

I decided it was super important to start the summer off right. I made the girls get up before eight, there was no tv at all for the kids and they did chores first thing. My cousin has a rule with her kids where they have to eat breakfast by nine am. I've decided it's a good idea and I'm doing the same.

Last year I had a terrible problem with the kids casually moving around the eleven, the same time we head towards the park for lunch. The girls would complain that they didn't have breakfast and had to eat first. Apparently the time isn't important to them as much as what the meal is labeled. So I'm hoping by enforcing this breakfast by nine, it'll encourage the girls to get moving and alleviate the problems we had last summer. Since they'll be moving, and I will too, I'll have to feed the boys it shouldn't be to hard to get the kids going on their chores then.

The girls have already been told that whether they get to go to the park or to the movies depends on getting their chores done.

I also want to get in the habit of doing school work each day but reading and school work is much easier to get the kids working on then chores. So the chores first thing in the am will probably work best.

Ean announced that he wasn't doing what I had asked him too. I spanked him. I really try to not use spankings and if anyone can give me a heads up on a book or technique I can try, I'll gladly look into it. I hate spanking but sometimes nothing else works for Ean. I thought Kate was stubborn but I think Ean wins.

Speaking of Ean, that kid is still getting into everything. My purse now sits in the pantry because Ean can't get into the pantry if it's latched. Little turd took my visor and scribbled out all my numbers I had saved on it.

*sigh*

Good thing I love him more then words can describe.

So anyhoo, that's how I have the days outlined for summer. Hopefully it works. I know that if left on their own they'd play all day and that's not going to work. I want them to play but I'd be doing my children a grave disservice if I brought them up to be selfish people that weren't responsible and didn't know how to take care of themselves. I love them to much to do that to them.

I guarantee Kate doesn't see it that way. She was grumbling that summer is for fun not for chores! Kate would love to wile away her summer in sprinklers and friends without a care in the world. Of course Kate thinks that setting and clearing the dinner table is a secret plot to ruin her entire day. Oh the drama. So this routine should be especially good for Kate and Ean.

I bought the summer movie tickets. A great deal, each series ticket is only $6.50 for eleven weeks worth of movies, different movie each week. There's also two friends tickets on each series. It's a great way to break up the week and pretty inexpensive. It'll cost more next year when I buy the twins too. This year I only had to buy four tickets.

We're doing swim lessons in July and the first half of August. Last year we did June and July but the kids were so grouchy in August, I think this will work better, allowing them to have more fun stuff at the end of the summer. Of course it's hotter in August and the kids will probably appreciate the water more.

There's also summer lunches. From the beginning of June until mid August we can get the kids lunch at the park. It's a federal program offered to all kids 18 and younger. It's from the same branch that does free and reduced lunches during the school year. With five children it makes a big difference in our budget and since it's done at local parks the kids have a chance to meet friends and burn off some energy.

I'm hoping I don't lose any twins. They are so hard to keep track of these days.

The only thing left is sunscreen. Ean dumped out what I had so I need to buy more. Those fair headed kids of mine, we'll have to be super careful this year.

Kate's dance recital

Wednesday May 28th, 2008 was the night of Kate's big recital. She was so excited she couldn't stand it! First things first, I worked all day long to have dinner ready by four so I could have time to do hair, make-up and still feed everyone. Kate was thrilled with having pepperoni pizza, her favorite.

It's rather odd how quickly she forgets that I never make what she likes when it's pizza night. She's downright cheerful about food but when we don't have pizza every night she quickly hates my meals all over again.

I've told her before someday she'll appreciate growing up with a mom that can cook and I know when that girl marries her husband will appreciate a wife that can cook. I need to get going on teaching her now! *laugh*

The last recital I bought a take and bake pizza but since we have no extra funds, that option was out. Hard to believe but the last recital was only in January. Kent was eager to skip this one but the whole purpose of dance class is to have a recital and show what you've learned! Dance lessons this semester were provided by the generosity of my mother. We flat out couldn't afford them this time round.

I did scrounge up a few dollars for a cheap lipstick and nail polish that was taken out of my purse and dumped on my carpet the next day. If I only had a crystal ball to predict what my middle son will do. Although I should have anticipated trouble, he was insanely jealous of his sister getting her nails done. Little boys do that when they have big sisters instead of brothers. You have to admit, colored nails are cool!

I painted Ean's nails too but drew the line at putting make-up on him.

Then it was time for Kate's hair. When I did her hair for the last recital, I had to cement it into placed. It was cute on stage but I was really hoping for a more natural look so I tried using less hair gunk. The curls fell out almost immediately.

Crap.

I put more hair stuff in, I curled her hair with a curling iron and I ended up with something a bit more poofy then her natural hair with a few ringlets around her face. I did make-up and can I just say I hate doing makeup on a seven year old. She scrunches and moves right when I need her to hold still. I ended up with mascara right under her eyebrow and eye liner smudged well below her lower lashes. I repaired what I could but dang, thank goodness I don't have to do that very often. There was also a wee bit of running over to the neighbors to share various cosmetics. There's definitely a bonus to having girls share a dance class.

Kate was disappointed when I wouldn't allow her to ride her bike in her dance costume. With her having less then a week of being without training wheels, I could just see a crash and her dance clothes getting ruined. It was just better to not let her.

With Jane's help I managed to get the twins ready. She was invaluable that night. I started telling Ean to get his shoes on a good four hours before we had to leave and well, he never got them. I was frantically getting twins ready, heating Kent's dinner because he'd have to eat it in the car and Ean's telling me you do it! every time I told him to get his shoes. He went to the recital barefoot. It was rainy and a little chilly but sheesh, I can't do everything!

We sat right in the front, Kent's mom saved us seats. I don't know why but for some reason Kate's always in the back row. I'll have to ask next semester why that is. Kate did fantastic. Here she is in her costume and all dressed up.



She had fun and enjoyed herself and really, that's what counts. *smile* Good thing her mommy doesn't listen when daddy said Lets just bag the whole recital this time around. *laugh*

I may be bald soon.

It was just one of those days. You know, the type of day where a child seems determined to cause as much mischief as possible. To break every known rule, take all the batteries out of all the remotes. Get into my purse, take all my credit cards into the back yard. Swipe a flashlight from his daddy's dresser. Steal the storage room keys to search for pop. Turned on the sprinkler in the back yard not once or twice but three stinking times!! This was after a rainstorm that completely soaked the yard.

Seriously it was never ending!!

How am I suppose to survive summer? He hasn't been out of school for a week! Yes I'm talking the red headed pre-schooler. The menace that's paralyzed our home with a complete lock down.

The girls are done Thursday, that might help his behavior but damn, it could make it worse. That whole competing for attention with my four other siblings deal.

I don't think our yard is that boring. We have a trampoline, a swing set, a great big ol tractor tire to dig in. There's a complete fleet of tonka trucks in the backyard. Thank you my mom who KNOWS how to shop for little boys. *laugh* There's also the usual collection of balls and outdoor toys. There is really a lot to do.

It's not like my poor brother. His new house, he has one potted tree, no yard and a place to park a car he can't even afford to buy. My brother live in Japan where a house half the size of my home costs three times as much. There's simply not the room for yards. I don't know how my bro manages with his three kids in that teeny space. I wish I could show my children how much they really have. I can't help but think they'd appreciate our home, yard, garden, toys, even their bicycles if they realized how many struggle to even eat. Contrary to what they might perceive, these kids really don't know what true hunger is like.

As interesting as these thoughts are to myself, they don't help with my original problem. I have one four year old hell bent on investigating every single item in the house in forbidden zones. I do realize in making certain area's forbidden it becomes more enticing to a child yet we can't afford to take the chance on him destroying more things.

It can be argued that if it's just a thing then we don't really need it. However the bike tools need to be kept intact so we can keep our fleet of hand me down rust buckets running for the kids. We can't afford to buy new and really at this age, they don't need nice bikes. There are photos that have been destroyed that can't be replaced. That's family history down the tubes.

I originally started blogging because I have some arthritis in my hands and writing for long periods of times just hurts my knuckles and fingers. Ean's destroyed some books or parts of books that are part of family history and I hadn't thought of it at the time but blogging has the added benefit of putting our family history down in a form that can't be destroyed by that kid. Kent copies what I write and puts it in our family history but if that gets destroyed, we can always copy it again.

Back to Ean, I'd find some old tools for him to play with except I worry about the twins getting hurt, or Ean unintentionally hurting the twins with screwdrivers or hammers. Ean is still pretty young and doesn't have control of his temper, he lashes out when frustrated. Pretty normal for a young four year old, but we don't want to arm him with a hammer when his two year old twin brothers are wandering around.

Kate had a dance recital tomorrow. I pretty much have to spend the whole day making sure everyone and everything is ready to go the second Kent comes home. I hope and pray we have a better day then today because I can't chase Ean and get Kate ready at the same time.

I will be bald from pulling my hair out!

Kate can ride a two wheeler!

At the age of seven, we took off her training wheels. It took her a whole two seconds to figure it out!!! Holy Toledo, absolutely amazing!!

You have to understand that it took Jane forever to figure out bike riding. Jane was about a year older then Kate is now but she was so afraid, she had a hard time balancing, it took months to get her riding. What finally worked was putting her on Kate's bike without the training wheels and then allowing her to go. Because the bike was so short she could put her feet down flat on the ground when she was in trouble.

Hard on her sneakers but it did the trick and the girl learned how to ride.

Kate's a daredevil in her heart but she's learned to be timid from her older sis. Kate use to climb up the top of the woodpile at eighteen months. From a year until three or so, she use to climb on the arm of our rocking love seat and surf. The child was fearless! It was frustrating when she started to act timid because in my heart I knew that wasn't who she was. It was very freeing to see her just go and ride without a care in the world her first try.

Don't get me wrong, Kate has her problems too.

*cough*notdoingschoolwork*cough*

The biggest one of late has been this raiding of the fridge and cupboards. This actually is an old problem. That child is sneaky with food. She has been since she was teeny. I really worry because I've struggled in the past with my eating, I've binged and starved many years ago and I've worried and struggled trying to instill healthy eating habits in my children. They all eat a wide range of vegetables well beyond iceberg lettuce and baby carrots. They all eat sugar pea pods like candy, ask for seconds and sometimes thirds when served broccoli. I know I'm doing something right there, but I see my food behaviors/struggles in my children and it scares me.

My dad was an alcoholic. He never changed before his death, he couldn't change. Coming from a whole family of alcoholics, there's a strong correlation between my unhealthy attitudes with food and how addicts behave. Both food and alcohol are artificial ways to avoid dealing with real feelings.

I don't want to project onto my children but honestly it scares me to see Kate sneaking cookies and not just one or two but a dozen. She feels compelled to eat and she's not honest when she does eat.

There's also a certain amount of mischief from the small boys. Just browsing in the fridge for toys, oranges make great balls you know.

All this prompted my husband to put a padlock on the fridge. I want the kids to understand that they can have snacks but they have to ask. We were having one pound blocks of cheese disappearing. With the prices of groceries, we just can't have that. The kids need to be respectful and not wasteful. I hope I can do that without my personal struggles getting in the way.

In the meantime, Kate already has plans for tomorrow. She's riding her bike.

Applesauce spice cake or Carrot cake?

This is what I asked Ean at about one pm. His birthday is Monday and I wanted to make his birthday cake. My little boy that's turning four whole years old looked at me for about a second before blurting out with great enthusiasm CHOCOLATE!!!!

What's a mom to do?

Since I had no desire (or money, *laugh*) to leave the house and buy cocoa powder, I borrowed some from my neighbor. Ean proudly helped with all the measuring and stirring of his birthday cake. He greased the pans, measured the flour and sugar and was very upset when I did the leavening because he's not very precise and I did want the cake to rise like it's suppose to.

After all, if you're a teensy bit short of flour or sugar, you're cake won't fail. I added more flour while mixing to make up an obvious shortage, but there's not much you can do if it doesn't rise in the oven.

I didn't have enough cocoa for the frosting so I made peppermint frosting and Ean stressed the importance of his birthday cake having rainbow sprinkles on it. Sounds good to me! So after frosting I sprinkled rainbow sprinkles liberally over the top. The cake now sits in the freezer waiting for Monday. I still need to wrap the kid's lightning McQueen themed presents.

Kent thinks I went overboard and I probably did but dang, sometimes I feel so bad for my true middle child sandwiched between bossy older sisters and time consuming twin brothers. Ean has a ball and not just any ball but a really tough rubber ball that reminds me of the dodge balls we played with as kids during recess. It has heavy duty patterned rubber that you'd have to stab with a steak knife to pierce. In this house that's important, my kids are pretty rough on stuff, it has to be built to last.

I also bought him washable markers. I wasn't born yesterday and Ean did come after two artistic sisters that have already left their mark in pretty much every room in the house. I also included crayons and a pencil box in the hopes that we could keep them safe from the girls who routinely scatter stuff all over the house. The twins have eaten more crayons then any other child simply because the girls neglect to put them away. So, I plan on labeling the box and hopefully this works, at least for a little will.

I also got Ean several Lightning McQueen posters to color. He doesn't get to color very often, his sisters often take over what he's trying to do. Our neighbor bought him a lightning McQeen shirt, bless her wonderful heart. Add in the towel (with you know who printed on one side!) and a couple of small cars, Ean's got a pretty decent haul. Nothing truly extravagant but he should feel pretty darn special.

Isn't that the point?

He's a good kid. Oh he frustrates me, his curiosity often gets the better of him. He explores, experiments and oh the energy that child has! But he's sincere and loving too. He's bluntly honest like most children his age and man does he say the funniest things. He was the least verbal of all the kids (Twins included) at age of two, speaking maybe three words total so I truly am enjoying him as the world of language has opened up.

Of course he also tells me NO and LET ME DO IT! He's figured out that words have power but he hasn't figured out that messages can also be understood softly. Then again, his sisters haven't figured that out either and they've got years more experience then he does.

In the past year he's gone from being being developmentally behind to being caught up. It's amazing, if he was a year old he'd be ready for kindergarten in the fall. He may be my most prepared kid yet, of course he has the most intervention. Darn ears were broken and I didn't even know it. Tubes are his friend, it's hard to learn to talk when you can't hear.

So now I know, when faced with applesauce spice or carrot cake the answer is of course chocolate.

It's official, Jane is no longer elegible for special services.

Basically Jane scored just above the cut off. While this means she's definitely improved academically she's not at the point where either I or the teachers involved at the meeting feel comfortable with her full-time in a regular classroom.

Her I.Q. measures 88 right now. This is the very low end of normal. However I.Q.'s at this age still are growing and she has the potential to measure much higher in a few years with the right kind of instruction and supervision. Oddly she scored dramatically well at non-language related problem solving. It was suggested that the girl be an engineer with how she thinks. I'm keeping that in mind. *smile* She scored just above impaired (so no qualifying) with language reception, auditory processing and very low with math skills.

Legally she no longer can have an I.E.P. This is very scary for me. An I.E.P. guarantee's that legally a school has to provide services for the child. Instead she'll be under an I-plan. Mostly it's a guideline the school follows but the school can change it and other schools don't have to honor it. Actually it's a bit of a concern but the local middle schools are behind in meeting the needs of these kids that can slip through the cracks. Luckily we have a full two years before Jane's in middle school. Hopefully we can get her up to speed where she can function in a regular classroom by seventh grade.

No matter what happens with our income, we need to stay in this house in this neighborhood for at least two more years so Jane can get this help that the staff at her current school is willing to give her.

If it had been just a few years ago, once she failed to qualify they would have just cut her loose. Thankfully they aren't going to do that this time.

So the plan, Jane will no longer have scheduled resource room. However where her speech teacher has been her "caseworker" the resource room teacher will take over this job. The RR teacher will be in charge of Jane's math classes since that's where she's the most behind. She scored at about a second grade level. Where she's been going to resource for reading, she'll now do that in her regular classroom however the RR teacher will check Jane's assignments daily to make sure she's written down what she needs to do.

Oh, yeah, Jane will have an assignment book to help her keep track of what she's doing in school. This will have to be signed by me after school so I can help keep her on track at home. She's really good at spacing assignments, so this will give her a coping mechanism as school gets more complicated.

I felt good about the meeting.

I dropped by Kate's classroom to check and see how she's doing. Apparently her behavior is better but she's still not completing assignments. I stressed that she needed to bring them home. The twins are napping when Kate comes home from school and I have that time set aside for one on one school work with Kate. I'm glad I took the extra minute to check in with her teacher.

That leaves just Ean. It looks like he won't qualify for Early Learning next year but I'm pretty sure he'll get into head start. What they'll do is pull him out for speech while he's in head start.

WHEW~ I don't know why the Lord has placed these particular children in our lives but I do know they're suppose to be here and with God's help Kent and I can help them reach their potential.

Welfare, mischief and general update.

Well my husband is still job hunting. No luck yet. He actually had an interview about six weeks ago but he wasn't hired. Honestly, he believes he wasn't hired because he's over qualified and he's probably right.

We're in an awkward situation right now. Due to a series of unfortunate circumstances my husband is trying to make a go of a business that was given every possible disadvantage there is. There's a whole history in why he's there, lots of family loyalty, worry for his parents and their financial situation and an evil sales representative that had it out for my FIL, the former owner of this business.

So my husband is trying to get this turkey going, and it's getting there, slowly but he's job hunting at the same time. While job hunting three other major businesses in town have either closed or had major layoffs. Sorry, restructuring *eye roll* That leaves hundreds looking for jobs in a town of only fifty thousand. Not a good situation.

However after much thought and prayer we've decided we need to stay where we're at. We have a fixed mortgage rate of four and a half percent. We had to refinance twice to get it that low, it was totally worth it. We also only have a decade left on our mortgage. Our first mortgage and first refinance on this house were thirty year loans. The second refinance, we got a sweet fifteen year mortgage with that uber low interest rate.

We talked about moving, this house is small for us. There are three very small bedrooms upstairs and two bedrooms downstairs. It's about two thousand square feet and we use pretty much every inch. The biggest bedroom downstairs is crammed with Kent's office and my sewing stuff. At one time we each had our own rooms and it was wonderful! But the Lord had plans for us and sent the twins, we put in an egress window in the smaller bedroom and the girls are now downstairs. My husband and I are sharing space. It would go a lot smoother if he'd stop stacking random computer parts on my fabric stash.

When times were better and we talked of moving I always had the same thought come into my head. That thought was the advice we've been given by our latter day prophets on living within our means. That means housing too and now I have a better understanding of why we've been given that council.

It's not just living within our means, it's an attitude of frugality that we should embrace. Saving money for emergencies, having a food storage, growing a garden when possible. It's a way of life and we've tried to follow that way of life.

I'll be the first to admit it's saved our cans the past five months. During this time we've had no income, we've payed all our bills, utilities and mortgage without help. We've also dipped into our food storage relying on it.

We have a decent food storage, we have wheat, dehydrated potatoes and other vegetables, dehydrated fruit, tvp, canned meat, veggies, fruit. We have oats, corn, rice and somewhere in the basement we have two five gallon buckets with sugar in it. That's not enough for our family of seven if we're talking a year but throw in our dozen 12 pound buckets of honey and about 40 pounds of molasses, we can stretch it out quite a bit.

We suffer a bit from pride, we weren't going to ask for any help at all. However I confided to a friend about our situation the day before she became Relief Society president. The Lord works in mysterious ways. *wink* She came to us with a food order and we've been on church welfare for three months now. Since our savings and tax returns have payed the bills, we've been receiving help with groceries.

At first we were really uncomfortable with this. After all, we do have our food storage and isn't that what's it's for? Then Kent went to a Stake welfare meeting and learned the Stake President has made it his mission to get help to families in potential financial trouble before they lose homes and the church can no longer help. Why, that's us!

We immediately felt relief. We've humbled ourselves and have gratefully received groceries from the church.

There's a few things I won't get though. We are on WIC and with the three little boys we get fourteen gallons of milk a month. If we run short, I insist we use our dry milk. Kent really doesn't like it, but that's why we have it! I feel very strongly about not taking more then we need and it's been a huge blessing. Of course I hope and pray soon we can move on.

Understanding our situation can help you appreciate the frustration I feel when my children waste food. It's bad enough a cereal box isn't put up and the twins take it out in the yard and feed the ants but sometimes my children treat food like it's a toy.

The brand of dehydrated milk we buy is called Moo's Milk, it's pretty tasty actually, much better then the powdered milk I grew up with in the seventies. Like all dairy products, the price has gone up. Where we last bought it for $76.00 a fifty pound bag it's now up over a hundred bucks a bag. That makes what we have extra precious. Every little bit is gold when you have no income coming in.

So when my almost four year old came to me to ask for a glass of kool-aid and I noticed a fine ivory powder over his hands, chest, feet and in his hair, my heart sunk. I knew it was the powdered milk.

I had a five gallon bucket in the kitchen that I was working out of. About four years ago we discovered gamma seal lids. Truly a wonderful invention. There's a threaded seal that goes around the rim of the bucket and a screw in lid that fits the seal. It makes it so much easier to work out of buckets, especially when you have as much stuff stored in buckets as we do! The downside, little boys that *L*I*K*E* *T*O* *P*L*A*Y*. This is especially frustrating since I have three to try to keep the reigns on.

When my was visiting, she tried really hard to not laugh every time she found a lock on a door or cupboard. She didn't succeed but she did try.

Thank you for that mom.

Anyway, kid, covered in ivory dust. I immediately looked for the bucket. I've spent so long not understanding my speech impaired kids I have a bad habit of not even asking Ean obvious questions. It would save so much time and he's still at that wonderful age where he mostly spits out the truth. Eventually I found the bucket. It had been about a third full, so maybe twenty pounds of moo's milk. It was all dumped on the cement pad in the back yard.

It obviously was being used as a sand box. Ironically the kids had dumped the sand from their sand box onto the cement pad about six weeks ago. So they had a sandbox. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr

There were foot prints through the milk and not just kid but kitty and doggy footprints too. Frankly I'm shocked the dog didn't roll in it. Wouldn't a carpet of dry milk be the doggy equivalent of a person rolling on money heaped on a bed? The milk's been shoveled and swept but I'm still catching the dog licking the cement.

Throw in the pancake syrup from a week ago and there's a lot of waste going on at my house. Oh yeah, the pancake syrup. Well we had this big container of syrup, there was about a half gallon left and I was serving scones for dinner. Now I made honey butter to go with the scones but my weird girls were determined to have pancake syrup on their scones. Blech!

The girls are responsible for clearing the table each day after dinner. However the lure of a beautiful spring day beckoned to them and they left the house to ride bikes. I think I was doing something really important like playing on the computer but I'd been working on the house all day and figured i deserved a break. I heard a noise in the kitchen (a twin making mischief noise) and went to check the table.

Oh my HELL!

Two two year olds and a half gallon of pancake syrup are not a good mix. What made it extra frustrating was that I had specifically reminded my ten year old to put the syrup away right before I left the table.

We're talking an inch layer over half the table. Syrup finger painted on the walls, the stuff that pooled in chairs and of course the sticky lake that now existed under the table. Did I forget to mention the syrup twins that had their clothes GLUED onto them? Dave was literally stuck to the table! I did what any sane parent would do, I got my husband as back-up because I knew I was not in the right state of mind to be "fair" and "reasonable".

Then I got the girls.

Kent was very fair, they needed to clean the entire mess and no syrup for a month. That reminds me, I need to make pancakes soon...

The girls worked hard for about twenty minutes and then fizzled into a fit of silliness that could not be contained. There was shrieking, running, thumping and door slamming. I could not put a stop to it because I was nursing two very sad boys with colds so they could go to bed in a few minutes. Apparently washing syrup out of hair is almost as traumatic as dental surgery had been the week before. Who knew?

Kent disappeared downstairs so I was on my own. I was peeved with those girls and I knew the mess had hardly been touched. What I didn't know is that Jane had mopped the floor. This means she wet the mop and spread the sticky over pretty much the entire kitchen. Kate had carefully cleaned the table and chairs all around the puddles. It looked like weird abstract art with these raised spots that had stuff stuck in them. there was a fair amount of sticky spread around the table too. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse.

Dave coughed. Not just any cough but a deep gut wrenching, I'm hacking up a lung cough. Very hard to hear your child sick. Even worse when it's your gag reflex kid. Yuppers, the kid hurled right on my face, across my pillow and onto our bed.

I loudly instructed Jane to go get her father. She came back and told me he was on the phone.

Grumble grumble grumble.

So I washed up, cleaned the kid again. Stripped my bed, threw my sheets and pillow in the wash and realized what a grand disaster the girls had made in the kitchen. That was when Kent finally came up.

Was I annoyed, frustrated or frazzled? I think a more accurate word would be irate, in laymans terms, I was ticked. Kent mentioned that when Jane came down he thought I was just asking for help getting the kids ready for bed. I was working hard to not loose it completely. I got after the girls, dumped a half gallon of water on the floor, got a pile of clean prefolds and instructed Jane to get on her hands and knees and use a clean prefold until it got dirty and then get another clean one, so as to not just spread the sticky. I then quickly did some wiping on the chairs, not wishing to press my luck on trusting Kate to actually get them.

And then Kent helpfully mentioned that I should have given Dave cough medicine.

*exasperated sigh*

I did, he threw the damn stuff up!

So I medicated the kid again, put on my shoes and suggested that Dave and Greg be put into bed. Kent said he didn't think that was a good idea just yet. OK, if you want him honey, he's yours. They are all yours!! I grabbed the ergo, put Ean on my back and met the neighbor to go for a walk. I could not take one more minute in the house!!!!!

Boy did my thighs feel that walk. After all I was carrying an almost forty pound weight on my back. I move a lot slower with an almost four year old on my back.

My neighbor's youngest was jealous that Ean was getting to go. I mentioned he was more luggage then anything else, he wasn't playing or jumping.

By the time I got back, I had cooled off enough to appreciate the work the girls had done. With a parent sitting right on top of them, they can do amazing work! *laugh* The twins were in bed and the girls gladly left the kitchen to go to bed.

I use to keep all my regular use bulk items (flour, sugar, rice, moo's milk etc) in five gallon buckets. I've been forced to move everything into smaller containers so I can lock it safely in my pantry. If I leave anything out even on the counter, someone will get into it. The twins love flour, Kate eats sugar in any form and Ean loves pretty much everything.

The twins are also garbage guts. Anything with food property they try to eat so I often find chewed up pectin boxes and sucked on cheese packs (from mac and cheese boxes) on the kitchen floor. It sure makes it hard to be frugal, hard to save, hard to keep stuff on hand. The worst part is they often destroy items that we can't replace from the Bishop's storehouse. The Bishop's storehouse is the LDS church's grocery store for welfare shopping. You find them in high LDS population areas. This leaves me with the option of spending money that we have budgeted to the penny or going without. Often we go without.

I should mention that in the past thirteen years of marriage we've never received help from the church before. I thought it was humbling the first time I went but I was wrong, it's far more humbling after the third month of receiving welfare.

Still we are counting our blessings. We have a home. Keeping our life in this world in perspective, that means we are incredibly rich compared to those impoverished nations that have so little. I need to remember my blessings not just today but when times are good again because we are blessed.