Wordy Wednesday

Last week, my sister in law came over for a visit with my niece and nephew. I haven't seen my nephew since he was a few weeks old. Let me just say, he his a big boy! He is not quite 7 months old in these pictures and look at how much bigger he is than Naomi. It isn't that he is just fat, but he is really tall and just generally big. But he is oh so squeezable and adorable!

And every girl needs a sunbonnet, right?
And that is one pooped out dragon!:)

Potty news of the day

Well, after hearing several people mention that they are trying to potty train their little ones, I decided to try to be more consistent with Esther (yes, peer pressure can sometimes be useful). She has been going potty off and on for a couple of months now. She knows what to do and likes going on the potty. She even tells me quite often "go potty!" and when she says she has to go, she always goes. So I decided it was time to get serious. It sure would be nice to only have one in diapers. So, yesterday we set the timer for 20 minutes and every time the timer went off, she was escorted to the potty and every time she was escorted, she peed. That means she peed every 20 minutes!! Does anyone else find that a bit bizarre? And there were even a few times that she told me at about the 10 minute mark that she needed to go and she did. But she did pretty good at keeping her panties dry most of the day. She had an accident when she got up from her nap because I was distracted and forgot to take her right away. I paid for that mistake by having to give her a bath. And then she had another accident in the evening. She told us she had to go potty and she was being whisked to the potty but she didn't make it in time. So, anyway, that's our potty issues these days.

Mom to the rescue and church update

After my Domestically Challenged post, my dear ol' Mom (I'm not really calling you old! ;) ) came over and set me straight! She spent a few hours one morning helping me (o.k., well I actually helped her) organize my tiny little kitchen into a much more workable space. The woman can do wonderful things in the area of organization. It gave me the start and motivation that I needed to tackle the rest of the issue. She took tons of my unused tupperware type containers and put them to use storing things around my kitchen. We, also, put away the microwave. I would love to say that it was for good reason like my sister, Samantha, has stated, but honestly it was just taking up so much space that I wanted it gone.
So, after that much needed kick in the pants, my mom took the older three girls home with her for the night. And on Saturday morning, I dove into some major kitchen cleaning. I wiped down the entire kitchen, took a butter knife and scraped around baseboards, pulled out the stove and cleaned underneath, wiped down cabinets, and then swept and mopped . It was so wonderful to stand back and see all that I had done.
Then that evening, I was treated to dinner out by a dear friend. Christian set up the tent in the yard and attempted a camp out with the four older girls while Naomi and I met my friend for dinner. I had such a wonderful time eating yummy food and visiting with this awesome lady. When I got home, Esther was ready to leave the tent and join me inside. And then Christian and the girls all came inside around 3:00 or so, because Christian could hear an approaching storm. And, man, did it storm! They got in just in time. It stormed the whole morning and we lost power a few times. But regardless, we got up, got ready and weathered the storm to try the church that I had mentioned in a previous post. And I am so glad that we did!
I really liked this church. It was very small and because of that it had that family feel that I mentioned before. During the service, they took prayer requests, praises and announcements. There was interaction between the man leading and the congregation. Everyone was so welcoming and genuine. One older lady that greeted us at the door told me that she had homeschooled her three sons, wore her babies in a front pack and then asked if I wanted to keep the children in the service with me. She then assured me that no one would be bothered by any noise they might make. This lady had me sold on the church right away! And then when I did retreat to the nursery because Esther was getting loud (very loud because she was scared of the thunder), I discovered that the nursery had a speaker set up so that you could hear the sermon while in there. How great was that!
We were only one of about three or four younger families in the church (and I would venture to say that out of those we were the oldest) and definitely the largest. But everyone we met commented on how blessed we were to have such a "full quiver" of little girls! :) And I know at least one of the other families with children homeschool. This was the same family that gave my husband the rabbits. For the first time in a long while, I am excited about a church. Now, I have one more church that I want to try in a few weeks, too, but we will definitely come back to this one and try it again.

Cloth Diaper Giveaway

Tiffany over at Nature Mom's Blog did a very informative piece about cloth diapers with a giveaway. So, if you have ever thought about going cloth, head over and leave a comment for a chance to win.

Stretching the food budget

The challenge for this domestically challenged woman: Feed my family of 6 eaters for a week for $50. How do I do this?
1. Go through cabinets make a menu plan
For breakfasts: Have all the stuff for this already
whole wheat scones; muffins; pancakes; oatmeal; and cream of wheat.
For lunches:
soup; leftovers;wraps filled with either pb&j, chicken salad or tuna
For dinners:
1. chicken stirfry & rice made with boneless chicken thighs (not near as yummy as the breasts, but so much cheaper and not much of a difference in this type of meal)
2.baked chicken, corn on the cob (already have), and baked sweet potatoes
3. chicken tacos with leftover chicken from night before (already have green peppers and onions)
4. soup & salad
5. rice, chicken and broccoli casserole
6. pulled bbq chicken on buns with green beans and mac&cheese
7. chicken and dumplings w/salad
For snacks:
granola, whole wheat snickerdoodles, whole wheat pb cookies and watermelon (my parents brought us 6 FL seedless watermelons this past weekend. Yummy!) and we usually drink water, ice tea (herbal for me and black for Christian) and the girls are allowed a pitcher of kool-aid a day
Step 2: shop at Aldi's!!!! I love this store. We hardly ever buy name brand anything and because of that I have not been able to get into coupon clipping. With most of the things I buy, even with coupons, I can't seem to beat Aldi's prices with one stop shopping. I do not want to have to go to 4 different grocery stores to get the deals. By the time I added in the price of gas to run my huge van to all those stores, I can not imagine it would be worth it.
Step 3: Buy 2 whole chickens. It is amazing how far you can make a chicken stretch for a family. The first chicken I baked and we used the leftovers the next night for chicken tacos. If I had not been so lazy (remember I am domestically challenged) I would have kept the bones and boiled them into broth after I was done pulling the leftover meat off the bone for the tacos. The second chicken was boiled on day 5. I used about a 1/4 of the meat for the casserole, a handful for chicken salad, the rest for bbq chicken and the broth for chicken and dumplings.
Step 4:Take art classes @ St.Elmo Baptist. LOL The church where the girls take art classes serves a free meal on Wed. to the community. They are donated tons of soup and bread from Panera for this purpose, but usually have lots left over in the freezer. A few weeks ago, the girls art teacher said that she was allowed to offer it to us because they needed the room weekly in the freezer for the new stuff coming in. So, each week when we leave art class we are loaded down with enough soup to fill my freezer, bagels and bread. Yummy! We eat it for lunches, usually have it two nights a week and Christian takes it to work. Such a blessing!
Now, this might seem like a lot of chicken, but it is so economical like this and we are not a family that gets bored with food very easily. We have stirfry, soup, and some sort of mexican dish almost weekly. Now, keep in mind I am always stocked in rice, grain to make flour, corn tortillas (which are great to fry up and make sopapillos (sp?) out of, and use in soup instead of noodles), and beans. And I am using powdered milk right now, too. We do not drink milk and only use it for cooking, and I have a big box of powdered. And all the recipes on my meal plan are things that are quick and easy because as I have already stated, I do not like cooking. And just for the record, I was shopping on $50 because that is what I had, not to break some kind of record, but I love when I look back and realize that I can make a dollar stretch when I need to.
But, this is how meal planning and grocery planning is done around here. We have always had to stretch the food budget, so I have learned to make food stretch. You should see how I can make a ham stretch! That is by far the thriftiest meat you can buy. :)

Domestically Challenged!

There is no other way to describe myself. I am extremely domestically challenged! I can not, for the life of me, keep a clean house. I always manage to keep it clean for a while when we move into a new house, but I can never keep it that way (maybe that's why we move so often lol).
Laundry is never ending! Then, just as I was starting to get it to the point that I could see the laundry room floor, we discovered a leak in the basement. So, all the bags of clothes that were being stored down there were dragged up and pulled out to go through. And now the mountain of laundry has spread from my living room (where all the bags were opened) down the hallway. And then my dishes... I should not even get started on them!
And then there is cooking. Ugh... I hate cooking. I want so badly to be a "domestic goddess", but I can not seem to do it. I want my husband to come home in the evenings from a tiring day at work, greeted by a nice clean house and a yummy healthy dinner. I want the evening to be filled with warm fuzzy memory making moments. But it's not.
Instead, Christian usually comes home to chaos. The girls running around the house like wild indians, the house looking like wild indians have been running through it and dinner just getting started (if we are having a good day). And God help me if someone decided to "just drop by". This small little act of kindness can throw the whole house into a frenzy!
I have to wonder why God has called me to this job. I am not good at it. I love being with my children and love the idea of "creating a home", but the truth is, I don't enjoy all the work it involves. I would much rather hire a maid to do all the mundane housecleaning and cooking and let me enjoy being a mother. I have often teased Christian that he could have another wife as long as she did all the cleaning and cooking and let me do the schooling and fun with the kids.
My goal this past weekend was to get the house completely clean. Clean and organize bookshelves, get all the laundry done (folded and put away), and give the whole house a complete cleaning (wipe down baseboards, dusting, mopping, washing windows, etc...). I was going to get it ready to implement the "new schedule and chore chart" today.
But, this morning, I woke up to an even messier house than when the weekend started. Every time I attempted to make progress, the little ones move faster than me messing it back up again. They don't mean to, but we are in a small house for a family our size. Esther wants to bring her toys in the living room to play near us. She wants to get out all the tupperware and carry it around the house. Ruby wants to make lemonade and doesn't mean to spill the sugar or leave it in Esther's reach so that she can later spill it again. Ruby is trying to help when she wants to cook scrambled eggs while I'm giving Izzy a phonics lesson and doesn't mean to drip egg on the counter, step on eggshells, and burn egg to the pan. Isabel is just trying to get something to drink and doesn't mean to knock down a glass that shatters on the floor or spill lemonade all over the floor, not tell anyone and then track it all through the house. These are just examples of the all day, everyday. So, how do you clean up the messes and keep the all day, everyday maintenance done. I feel like I spend the majority of my day doing damage control. I know that I am the worst at managing my time. When I read Karen's post about the sloth... I was convicted. I know that at 32 I should know how to manage my home, but the truth is, I don't. I can write lists and schedules all day long, but it is just a stalling tactic to keep from actually getting up and accomplishing the things on the list. I need accountability. Christian loves me and doesn't want to hurt my feelings, so he is too easy on me. But, I am a grown woman and need to be accountable to myself and the job that God has called me to do. But, how do you "teach an old dog new tricks"? And please don't tell me Flylady. I can't stand Flylady (no, not her personally, just the whole... you know, Flylady thing.). I don't like the millions of emails a day it sends. I need to know how to practically homeschool 3 children, keep a clean house, and make sure everyone is clean and fed with a toddler and a nursing baby thrown into the mix. I feel like my family deserves better. I need a class for domestically challenged homemakers, but then I would probably just sit down and work on it rather than my house >sigh<.

Ms. Potato (soup) Head

This is what happens when you leave a two year old at the table to finish up the rest of her potato soup. The soup becomes a hair care product. She was actually rubbing it into her hair like shampoo. Yuck!