Jumping into Tuesday

Wow...it's Tuesday of vacation week already after a very full, but much needed, long weekend.  Jay spent lots of time with Jon trying to sort out the direction he wants to head next year.  We both spent lots of time texting Mike who is still completely confused about what direction his studies should take.  Jay and the boys also spent lots of time shoveling after all the snow that fell between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning...a glorious 10 inches!  (and I say that filled with sarcasm!)

Seriously....bring on Spring!

I think my favorite day of the weekend was Monday.  Jay spent almost the whole day with the younger kids making lots of lego creations with Luke...and Kate.  He played games with Ellie and even cooked his famous roast for us for dinner!

Jay has always been a 'play on the floor' kind of dad!
My kids are so blessed to have a dad that loves them so much
and loves to spend time playing with them!

We all spent the morning together and then I took Sarah to meet up at the mall to hang out with a few of her friends window shopping and then catching a movie.  Jay most generously gave me the afternoon to myself to do some shopping of my own.  I had 3.5 hours of uninterrupted browsing and buying without having to entertain anyone!

It was glorious!

My grandmother had left each of her grandchildren some money when she passed away.  I wanted to use some of the gift she gave me to redecorate the living room and family room.  I have been looking at rugs for weeks online, but getting out alone is hard for me and trying to shop with little kids usually just leaves me making impulsive decisions!  (You know...the "I don't care anymore let's just pick something and get out of here before it gets ugly!")

Since I was free to go to as many stores as time would allow and browse to my heart's content without dragging kids in and out of car seats, I went to 7 different stores.  (A couple were quick stops to pay a bill or return something but even that felt good!)

I found a rug at Lowe's that I thought was going to be for the family room but ended up fitting in the living room and looking great so that is where it is staying.  I got a few new pillows for the couch....sticking with our green color scheme we have in the kitchen.  It is a change from the deep red we had and lightens things up quite a bit!  With all this snow and dreariness outside, having some light, cheerful colors inside makes a big difference.  I even found some accessories for "pops of color" as they say on HGTV!  I was in Christmas Tree shop and Pier One thinking, "What would Sabrina Soto do?"!:)

I really, really love to shop!  Having an afternoon to myself while Jay had fun with the kids at home was such a luxury!  The little ones enjoyed their daddy time, too!  At one point Jay sent me a text about dancing with Kate....

"Cooking on my day off, listening to old Billy Joel songs.

Kate asked me to dance with her.  I picked her up and 

did a box step to "She's Always a Woman to Me" 

and Kate hummed the song like she knew it while hugging me....

she's such a girl!"

And she is a little girl who has her daddy firmly 'wrapped'!:).....just like her sisters!  I wish I had been here to snap a picture!

Speaking of pictures, I am thinking about buying a new camera that can capture the kids jumping, running and squiggles without looking like something out of a psychodelic light show!  They are pricey...but I was thinking that it would be a really special way to use some of the money my grandma gave me to purchase something that would help me keep family memories.  Family was what she was all about, so I do feel good about it!  I did some research and I am looking at the CanonT3i Rebel.  I always get so stressed out making electronic purchases because there are just soooo many choices and most of the descriptions feel like they are written in a foreign language to my simple, mommy brain!  I usually drag my heels because I am afraid to make the wrong decision, waste money, and not be happy with what I buy.

I do love taking pictures!  I want the kids to have family memories and I don't want to forget all these stages of cuteness that go by so fast!  (And of course, I like having evidence of those not so nice memories to embarrass them with when they are older...a little payback can be a good thing!;)  

It's funny to think that with the older boys we were dealing with disposable cameras and cameras with film that usually left you disappointed in the "perfect shot" I would think I took only to find out it was blurry or someone blinked a few weeks later!  It's amazing how far technology has come even within the short span of our children!  

Well...I hope you are enjoying your Tuesday!  We are having a lazy day here and if I can convince Kate, Luke and Peter to get dressed I think we will venture out into the snow for a little fresh air!  (Although I would be just as happy hanging out inside watching a movie!  I am so not a winter person:)

Happy Valentine's Day

So....this week has no words to describe it.  I'm pretty sure that the Lifetime channel will be calling me soon asking me for the rights to make a movie out of this week!

Way too much to process!  T.G.I.F!

#1:  Valentine's Day

But...today is Valentine's Day so I'm pulling it all together (mostly) to try and create a nice day for my family(or at least most of them...Mike got a bag with candy and a gift card before he left for school last weekend with instructions not to open until Valentine's Day!)

#2:  More on Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day carries high expectations for some people!  It's really funny how different people can be when it comes to this 'day of love'...especially comparing people who have been married for a while with young kids and newly engaged couples. #myhusband'sfamily!

While us old, married wives are content to make special dinners for our husbands, there are WAY more expectations for my future brother-in-law!  This pic says it all.....

#3:  Pressure, Pressure, Pressure

Then, there are those that are single, and would rather not be, so Valentine's Day is just a little dagger in their heart instead of a Cupid arrow!  I have a son..or two...dealing with this!  Not looking forward to the grumpy texts I'm anticipating from Mike today...since they started yesterday!  I'm praying for God to put the right girl in his path....(and, Lord, if it isn't too much to ask could you please hurry!)

#4:  Romance

Umm...not so much!  Honestly, sometimes there is too much pressure for Valentine's Day.  With 8 kids....and a whole lot of extra stress this week...my idea of romance is wearing my p.j's and watching a chick flick!(Jay...I'm making it easy for you!)

#5:  The Kiddos

A little something for the kids is a way for them to feel loved and special.  There were earrings and pencils for the big girls, candy and a small itunes gift card for the big boys, a squeeze toy and gfcf candy bar for Peter, an inexpensive package of trucks and some truck stickers for Luke, and a coloring book and some stickers and a rubber duck with hearts on it for Kate.

Just a little something...but it's really funny how even the older kids enjoy getting a little surprise...especially Jon!:)

#6:  Young Adults

Part of the stress from this week is having the three older boys all so unsure about their future.  Mike is second guessing his major at a time that, if he ends up changing it, he will have to be in school for a whole other year which piles on way more school loans than was first anticipated.(And the worry that he will struggle paying for said school loans once he does graduate which will put the burden on us as co-signers.)

Andrew has submitted two of his three transfer applications.  Again, the schools he is applying too will cost him lots more and it's just stressful trying to figure out where he belongs.

Ditto with Jon...about being stressful trying to figure out what path he wants to pursue.

Laundry and lasagna I can do with my eyes shut...parenting these young adults, not so much!(Clearly a deep thought constructed while hiding sitting on the floor in the laundry room...really, it's the best place for a good cry now and then!)

#7:  Long Weekend

Jay didn't realize that he has Monday off.....long weekend for us! whoot!  whoot!  It will be nice to have him home for one of the kids' February vacation days!

We so need this! Honestly, I just want to hop on a plane with the younger kids and get away!  I need a 'vacation from my problems' to quote a line from What About Bob.

Happy Weekend!

Musings on Emotional Love Tanks

I clicked on an interesting article today...Why Being a Mom is Enough.

One paragraph from the article stuck out in particular for me:
 "Sometimes we want to look to those big things and use them as a grade for success. We look at the cool science fair projects where our child got the blue ribbon. But, honestly, we miss the hours of interacting and holding glue sticks and looking up things and laughing side by side. We want the trips to Disney or American Girl Doll and discount the time spent in the backyard. The bar of success and joy and happiness gets pushed so high by culture that the little things, the enough mom moments, are lost."

I love the bigger moments....planned outings and vacations are special family time.  One of the reasons these times are so special is because they don't happen all that often.  Special trips and vacations...and we have been blessed that Disney and the American Girl Doll experiences have been a part of our own family memories....aren't part of the daily every day comings and goings that fill my kids' emotional tanks.

What really fills their emotional love tanks are the moments that we are blessed to have each day playing together, working together, and just breathing together.  (Of course, there are lots of everyday moments that have the potential to suck their emotional love tanks dry, too, but we will stick with the positives today!)

Every day is an opportunity to try, with God's Grace, to create an atmosphere of love in my home.  Every moment of every day is my chance to grow in patience(when someone spills their water cup for the 8th time in 15 minutes) and endurance(when my strength has to last longer than Kate's temper tantrum) and selflessness(when Luke is asking me to play Legos and all I want is to work on is my to-do list).

My family is my world.  My children and husband are on my mind constantly.  There are prayers I utter countless times a day when they are on my heart....like when I know they are driving to or from school, or when I'm folding one of their shirts, or when I see a picture or a commercial of something they like.

(And of course there are those other prayers I say for those moments I find a pile of dirty towels "hiding" in the middle of their bedroom floor....or the empty bowl from the ice cream they ate the night before next to the couch...or their dirty laundry that must have magically jumped from the bathroom hamper back onto the floor!  You know, the "God, please help insert name here not to be such a slob!)

I think Rachel said it best....
"A mother isn’t based on external perfection. A mother is the person, the woman, just like you. The woman with little ones in her care that she loves, and sometimes wonders how she loves them because they’re driving her batty, but still she does. She fights, gives, prays, works, and doesn’t give up even when she wants to throw in the towel."

Amen, Sista'!  :)

Ready, Set, Monday!

Well, we survived our tantrum filled Sunday mostly unscathed!  This morning was much easier with Kate, who happily got dressed in the 'kitty shirt' she chose.  She even let me put in the matching hair bows...and they stayed in for a whole 20 minutes!  (Which was at least long enough to take this picture.....)

This weekend was really busy with lots of birthday time!  It started on Friday with a family party for both Mike and Andrew.  They were born on the same day two years apart...not planned, but babies come when they want! 

Mike turned 21, so Jay had gotten some beer and we got a picture of Mike having a beer for the first time!(cough, cough...at least that I have on record.  I'm sure they only serve soda at college dorm parties, right!?!;)

Then, on Saturday, we took Mike to a local hibachi grill restaurant.  Mike had never been, so it was fun to do something new and he enjoyed his food.  We were joined by the rest of our teens, Jay's sister, his brother-in-law, and my sister.  It was fun and then Jay's sisters came back to our house for games afterwards.

Sunday, after the tantrum fiasco and Mass, Jay took Andrew out for lunch and a little road trip to pick out the birthday present he asked for....a cowboy hat!

Lookin' good..and it hides the hair he keeps refusing to get cut!
Andrew asked Kate if she wanted to wear his hat and Kate said,
"No want hee haw hat.  Kate wants pom-pom hat."
Not sure where she got the hee haw hat idea...but we were all laughing!

The rest of Sunday was spent just chilling and doing a little Olympics watching!

And...here we are at Monday and back to the grind!  This is a super busy week for us!  Lots of basketball games including senior night for Jon and his last 3 regular season games of his senior season!(sniff...)  Ellie has 2 basketball games....Valentine's Day is Friday....

Yep...this week is going to fly by!

I hope that your week is off to a good start!

The Joys of Tantrums

The terrible two's are rearing their ugly head again at our house.  Kate is our first child who has gone through the terrible two's...usually my kids are terrible three's.  Hopefully, Kate won't be both!

Two days ago, Kate had a 15 minute tantrum because she wanted a popsicle at bedtime.  She just stood in front of the refrigerator screaming and crying.  It was so.much.fun!(insert eye roll here!)

Kate is strong willed!  Getting dressed in the morning can be interesting and I find that if I just give her a choice between two different colored shirts then she is fine.  If I don't give her a choice, sometimes it's not an issue but other times it just gets ugly.

Take this morning for instance.

It's almost Valentines Day and I have a cute shirt dress...pink and black with hearts... and heart tights that I bought her.  I wanted her to wear it to church.  I talked up the outfit before I took it out and she wanted to wear it.

The problem was that the dress is long sleeved but kind of light weight and, since it is still arctic around here, I wanted to put a turtleneck on underneath it.  Kate doesn't do well with layering.  (exhibit A...a tantrum when I made her wear a sweatshirt over her shirt and a coat on the coldest day of the year a few weeks ago!)

I tried to move really quickly with the turtleneck and dress but it didn't work.  Once the turtleneck was on she wanted nothing to do with the dress.:(  Tantrum ensued!  So, I decided to punt and let her just wear the turtleneck and gave her a choice of pants.  Trouble is...she wanted to just wear the turtleneck and the tights.

After more tantrum time and a few hugs and gentle whispers to try and calm her down, I searched through her drawer for a skirt.  Unfortunately, the only one I had had pumpkins on it!  Since she couldn't just go to church with the turtleneck and tights....the pumpkin skirt was the answer. (It didn't help that we were running very late this morning!)

It took a few more minutes for her to calm down! (Jon saw me taking this picture and asked in a surprised voice, "You aren't going to blog that, are you!?!"  To which I answered, "Absolutely!  This is parent revenge!":)

At Mass, Msgr. talked about St. Philip in his homily and about humility and being able to laugh at yourself in humbling moments.  Isn't it wonderful that Kate gave me an opportunity to live out his homily!  As he was talking, I was holding my beautiful two year old dressed in a pumpkin skirt with heart tights.  I didn't even attempt to put on the cute little heart ribbons in her hair that matched the tights because she was such a mess!  She is not a fan...to put it mildly...of having "pretty, pretties" in her hair!  Geez, isn't that why God gives moms girls...to dress them up and put bows in her hair?  Obviously Kate missed the memo.  (Come to think of it, Sarah hated things in her hair when she was little, too!)

Good thing I've(mostly) gotten over having my children look perfect!

Kate did fine the rest of the morning.  She is having quite a good nap this afternoon....still in her "interesting" outfit!

Tantrums must be in the air for us because Luke had a doozie of his own, (which is a complete rarity) about an hour after we got home from Mass because....get this...."He didn't get to go to the bathroom at church."!  

Seriously!?!  Is there something in the water?

The joys of parenthood....kids grow up so fast...(Well, the older kids' "phases" are just as fun(!))...someday I'll miss this(?)....

 Well, not right now!

 Oreos make things a little better.  I'm thinking that every time the kids have a tantrum I'm just going to drink wine from the bottle...with a straw...until they finish carrying on!;)

(Just kidding...I honestly don't even like wine:)

Hoping you have a tantrum free day! 

Birthday Squared

So....I'm still not functioning all that well...way too much juggling going on!  But...it's Friday!

And it's a very special Friday:)...so let's hop to it!

1. & 2.  Birthday Boys!

Today, Mike turns 21(!) and Andrew turns 19!  How the heck does this happen!  Pictures from our party weekend to come:)

3.  Birthday Bash Crashed

I have been making plans for over a month to bring Mike to a casino for a little gambling and then dinner at Hard Rock Cafe with our sisters.  But plans all got changed because Mike's license had to be renewed to be an over 21 license and the temporary license can't be used as a valid form of I.D.

Big bummer!  So yesterday, amid making phone calls to ask questions to the casino, attending a parent/teacher conference for Luke, dealing with Kate who was acting very "2", listening to Peter ask 150 times in 20 minutes if we could drive a certain way home, and picking up Sarah at school....I tried to come up with a plan B that wouldn't completely suck and make up for the big disappointment.  (And I had to work on keeping my head from exploding from too much stress!)

The answer....we are going to eat on Saturday night at a cool hibachi place!  (and we will save the casino day for next month...so really, he gets 2 birthday celebrations:)

And I called ahead and as long as he brings his birth certificate with his temporary license he will be able to have a 'grown-up drink'.

Lest you think I'm a bad mom....we have plans for Andrew too:)  A special day with Dad planned with a special meal and shopping for the birthday gift Andrew wanted....a cowboy hat!  

4-6.  Medical Mishaps

Ellie got hit with a basketball on her head twice yesterday and came home with a headache.  The nurse called from school this morning and said Ellie had come down complaining of a headache.  I'm wondering if she got a slight concussion...sigh:(

Then, Jon took a really rough hit in his basketball game last night and we were worried he might have a concussion....but he seemed fine this morning.

Also last night.....Mike had a game and ended up flying over someone's shoulder when he went up for a block and the other kid crouched down.and Mike flew over the kid's shoulder and landed on his right hand and his hip.  He is heading to the orthopedic doctor  as we speak to make sure he didn't break one of the bones in his hand.  Oy!

Well....they say things happen in three's so I guess we are good now!

    7.  An ADHD Moment

Seriously, I am tired and can't focus on anything!  All this planning to try and make the boys feel special has worn me out....and we haven't even done anything yet!  Tonight will be the family party with dinner(steak...both boys' favorite...and mashed potatoes for Mike and curly fries for Andrew.  And, of course, Grandma's chocolate cake with ice cream:)

I will leave you with a pic I took of Kate...I love it when she makes this pose.  She is playing with my phone and has her little knee bent and her little bottom jutting out...just makes me want to hug her:)

Happy weekend!

Wednesday Already?

I can't believe it's Wednesday already!  Last weekend and the beginning of the week have just been crazy! We've had basketball games, a super bowl party, spent lots of time with Mike trying to encourage him and figure out what direction he wants his undergraduate degree to take, two days of snow including today's snow day for all the kids, a field trip for Luke, dermatologist appointments for me and Jay, and brainstorming ways to make 3 birthday boys feel special this month! (Mike will be 21 on Friday(!), Andrew will be 19 on Friday and Jon will be 18 on the 24th!)

That's the reason for the small blog haitus...I just didn't have it in me!  I have lots of post ideas...and many cute pictures to share...but there just weren't enough hours in the day.

I know I've said it before, but parenting older teens and young adults is even more difficult that parenting the younger kids with their sleepless nights and constant care.  With the older kids it is just so incredibly emotionally exhausting.

And we get to parent both groups all at the same time! Yay!

I so wish we could just hop on a plane and go somewhere warm for February vacation!  I am soooo in need for some sunshine....and a change of scenery!

I was trying to finagle some quick  overnight trip over the vacation but I can't seem to coordinate everyone's schedules.  Jon's basketball team is in a tournament the first 3 days of the vacation, and Andrew and Mike still have classes that week.  Plus, finding somewhere to go that has something to interest all the kids is really hard to do!  Of course, waiting until the last minute to find something isn't in my favor for availability, either.  I guess I will keep looking around and see if something works out.

I have to say that I am soooo ready for spring!  On a happy note, have you noticed that it now stays dark until after 5!  Love that:)

Jon, Sarah, Ellie, Luke and Kate all went to play in the snow on Monday in the late afternoon.  The older three all built snow forts and had a snow ball fight.  Luke helped with the building of the snow fort and then decided he was cold and ready for cocoa.

It was Kate's first real time playing in the snow and she loved it!  She wanted to hold my hand or my dad's hand.  We would give her a snowball and she would throw it and giggle and ask for more.  I wanted to take a picture of her all bundled up before we went outside but she was not interested!  So this is all I got....