Oh yeah, I did this also...

When I was at the craft store getting the twine for the bottles, I HAD to use my 40% off coupon, and the savings on the $1.99 twine just didn't cut it for me. I love craft paper, and knew I'd find uses for that, so I used my coupon on a book of that. I found a cute simple project right when I got home. I've had this picture of baby Saxton hanging in my living room for the two years we have lived here. I thought it needed a little something.




So, I added some of my 40% off paper to the back...



Funny thing... my neighbor came over the other day and said, "Ahhh, look at that picture of Saxton." Funny how just a different backing can make it look new. Here it is on the wall... man I don't remember that round little face!

My first craft blog...

Not that anybody is reading this, but hey, for my own enjoyment...

So my friend and I spent a Sunday going thrift store hopping (Thanks Courtney! It was really fun, I want to do it again SOON!) I came home with a ton of good bargains! As a matter of fact, they filled my living room floor :) Yet I somehow forgot the milk? While I always look for my Nora Robert's books to complete my collection, I have found something new I love to look for - glass bottles/containers in cool shapes. Not that I know what I am going to do with them when I get them home??? Here was my first attempt at a project.



Here is a cool looking bottle I got for $.99, yup, I said $.99. Can't beat that! So I found some twine (Jute) at the craft store along with clothing dye in the color of olive because I wanted it to match my kitchen curtains. I soaked the twine in the dye for about an hour. When I took them out they looked like really dark brown and I was disappointed (but as they dried over the next day they got lighter and more "olivey"). So, me being me and not wanting to waste the remaining dye, I took down my other set of curtains from my kitchen that I had been wanting to replace, I thought hey, why not make them match, so I filled my tub with the remaining dye and soaked my curtains for hours, and took them out to find them still stark white. Huh? What??? Are you laughing at me right now? I didn't even think to check the tag, yup, they are polyester, and apparently... you can not dye polyester. I searched the house high and low, but found nothing else I wanted to dye. Bummer, I hate wasting stuff! Well, anyway, here's how my project turned out...



I had extra twine, so, yup, don't like waste, I decided to give the bottle a matching friend... that's the other bottle in the photo.
After all was said and done, here's how they look...



I'm pretty happy with them. My son thinks we should make a potion to put in them and he can put them in his room. I vetoed that. I think they are going to go on my kitchen counter with pasta and rice. Cute right?

AHHHH A Shower...

So, has anyone else ever noticed that you do your best thinking in the shower? No? This is just me? Well, let me explain. The thought has occurred to me often that I do in fact have my best thoughts in the shower. It re-occurred to me the other day, when I told my friend I was just going to hop in the shower and I'd get online with her in like 15 minutes, well, that 15 minutes lasted much longer (sorry Courtney). The thought crossed my mind this time as to why it is my most productive time for thinking. It is because it's so hot and QUIET in there. Some how, the world outside of "Shower Heaven" disappears. Well, let me qualify, this is only when I enter my land of "Shower Heaven" when the hubby is home, otherwise, if I can fit a shower in while the hubby is not home, I can in fact hear the monsters in the "Real World" running (which they are not supposed to do) or I get that invader yelling through the door, "can I have a snack or he did this or he did that." However when the troops are being manned by their dad, I can shut it out and hear only the blissful sound of the water running and my thoughts flowing. I dread having to step out of my land of "Shower Heaven" cuz the thoughts disappear. They go to the same far away land that my flat tummy and nice legs went... to the land of "Taken By Motherhood." Granted, when they took those from me, along with my clear thoughts, they did in fact leave three gifts in the form of my healthy boys. I think the trade off was in my favor, but every once in awhile it would be nice if the land of "Taken By Motherhood" would let my flat tummy, and my nice legs visit for an extended vacation. I do seem to have visitation rights to my thoughts from "Taken By Motherhood" in the land of "Shower Heaven," however when I step out of that silent world, and into my loud "Real World" my thought seem to disappear. I should perhaps use one of those soap crayons of the kids and write my thoughts down while in "Shower Heaven." Had I done so, I may be on the best seller's list or sold one of my million dollar ideas or at the very least completed a trip to Wegmans with everything I needed.
Too bad my laptop is not waterproof, cuz I'd have some great blogs! LOL!

School "break"

The boys were all home last week on winter break. This should not exist! I think that they should keep the kids in school for that week, after all they are on a roll, why interrupt me? Oops I mean them. :) If you HAVE to release the video game addicts for a week, save it for warmer weather. Heck, release them a week earlier in June, when I can send them outside to argue and fight with each other. For the love of all things good in life, why give them a "break" when it's 10 degrees outside and we are essentally trapped indoors? Unless you want to spend a boat load of moola going to some over priced, over crowded germ fest of an activity. Do I sound jaded? LOL! Sorry, I do enjoy some parts of them having off. I do like not having to pack lunches at night and not having to stand in front of the cold door while watching to be sure they don't kill each other before the bus comes, but other than that, I have decided it just not a good idea.

The kids all being home all week gives me pleanty of time to readdress my parenting flaws and challenges.

1) My boys are ALL completely addicted to video games including PS2, Wii, Psp and Game Boys. When I just had Shane, I had made these time tickets and once they were gone, he was done. Now... well... now, they spend most of their free moments playing these games. I know it's not good for them, I feel though that it will be worse to stop them and have to deal with the "we have nothing to dooooooo" whines and the new game of choice to be rolling around on top of each other. Which I promptly halt, cuz you KNOW someone will get hurt. To which I then have to hear, " you're so mean, you won't let us play video games, you tell us to play and then you yell at us for playing, you're so mean!" The make sure they get that part in there twice for good measure.

2) The video games that I have allowed my kids to play have all turned out to be bad choices. Who knew that a LEGO game would have guns? I guess I should have, they all do after all. Due to my previous lack of Star Wars knowledge, I also thought a Star Wars game would consist of light sabers, not guns. Well, not the case. Turns out that not even an Olympics game is a good choise, cuz when the charactors loose, they pound their feet and get angry that they lost. Nice! And might I add that you think that these games where player 1 and player 2 have to work together towards one common goal would teach team work and cooperation. UMMMMM, not so much, it sounds more like this at my house, "STOP IT, COME OVER HERE, I SAID COME HERE, DROP OUT, D R O P OUT, HEY! WELL... YOU KILLED ME FIRST, I DIDN'T MEAN TO, YES YOU DID, STOP IT, COME HERE." Ahhhhh, team work, how sweet it is???

3) If the sun is even remotely shining, my children believe they do not need coats to go outside, despite the temperature of 24 degrees. (oh, and in the summer, when it's 80 degrees, I have to forse them to go outside??)

4) I am "The meanest mom ever" because I will not let them graze like cows all day long. We have meal times and snack times, just like at school, but for some reason the are always STARVING.

5) Yep, back to my commercial aggrivation. There should not be commercails for Erectil Disfunction on durring a children's program. This time... inquiring minds did want to know what ED meant. And thank you for using the word sextual in the commercail. UGH!

6) Why do they have to shower, it's not like they are going to school????

7) The playroom FULL of bins and bins upon bins of toys is essentially pointless, cuz there is NOTHING to do down there. HMMMM, I'm thinking I see a craft room in my future.

8) My opinion strongly differs from theirs in that they belive bed time should be extended by hours since there is no school.

9) Cats and Dogs should all be hairless (I know, not really a parenting issue, but it is one of my personal issues).

10) It is a mystery as to why my children wait until 7 pm Sunday night before telling me they can read over break and get a prize from the prize box, "so, can you sign my paper saying I read?" UGH...NOPE! I did suggest a number of times that we practice reading, to which I always got, "I don't wanna." Can you feel my eyes rolling??

So who do I talk to about this school break thing any way??

NOW what are we going to do?

So, my two older boys both have a sleep over on Saturday night. Shane going over to the neighbor's house with three of his friends. Sulli having a friend here. (Saxton of course feeling very slighted.) Sunday we meet up with the older boys and the younger siblings, totaling 10 kids, and go to a movie. We get home and I hear, "NOW what are we going to do?" REALLY??? REALLY???? Never enough from this meanest mom ever I tell ya!!

You might be....

If you expect your children to clean up their dishes when they are done with them...
You might be The Meanest Mom Ever!

If you expect your children to clean up their toys when they are done playing with them....
You might be The Meanest Mom Ever!

If you expect the the clothes your children peel off their grubby selves at the end of the day to get into their laundry baskets...
You might be The Meanest Mom Ever!

If you expect them to hang up their towels on the towel rack when they are done drying from the shower...
You might be The Meanest Mom Ever!

If you interrupt them from what ever they are doing to go back and do any one of those things they neglected to do...
You might be The Meanest Mom Ever!

I really am The Meanest Mom Ever!

Tampons, Teen Pregnancy and Fighting

Here are some things that I pondered about this weekend.

So, my kids are watching Full House this weekend on the FAMILY channel. Now to me the title of that channel would indicate that things aired on that channel will be family friendly. Not the case I have found out. As their 6 eyes are glued to the TV, a commercial comes on for Tampax tampons. REALLY??? Tampons? REALLY??? Not only do they show the tampon, they go on to describe how it expands and how much it absorbs. I'm sitting behind them, bracing myself for the what the enquiring minds will want to know. Surprisingly, they asked no questions. Perhaps they didn't need to ask any questions because the commercial did such a wonderful job of explaining it! Directly following the feminine hygiene product, the FAMILY network airs a commercial for a show titled... "The Secret Life of an American Teenager." As the extremely young teenager in the commercial debated the pluses and minuses of her PREGNANCY my three impressionable young boys sit staring at the girl who is too young to be pregnant. I tell my kids you have babies when you get married. Yet here's this show telling my kids, nope, you have a baby when you're a teenager. REALLY??? Great! Thanks FAMILY channel!! Oh and on top of it, let's stress the she's an "American Teenager!"

SO, the commercials on during the Superbowl are supposed to be great, right?? REALLY??? Thanks for all of the SEX ads for my boys!! So, no family channel, no sporting events?? What can I let them watch??? And when I restrict them from watching these shows, yup, I'm The Meanest Mom Ever! Can you see my eyes rolling from there?

Another thing I pondered this weekend (ok I ponder it pretty much daily), is if the fighting and arguing gene is attached to the Y chromosome? "He looked at me, " He didn't look at me," "He smiled at me," " He touched me," "I wanna play too," I don't wanna play," oh I could go on and on... and so could they.