Self Discovery

At some point today between.....

....................breastfeeding.................homeschooling............changing some cloth diapers....................wearing my 5-month old in a sling........................reading recipes on making your own baby food.......and sleeping with 4 of my children *my husband was in there too, somewhere)...........

.....................................................I came to the realization

I am a hippie A.K.A - a Crunchy mom (see definition to follow)

Here are a list of qualifications for "crunchiness""

extended breastfeeding (beyond a year) (working on it)

cloth diapers (trying it)

homeschooling (working towards it)

drug-free births (probably wont do it - but never say never)

baby wearing (do it)

adoptive breastfeeding (would totally do it)

co-sleeping or family beds (do it)

full-time parenting (do it)

Now according to the definition I found, you can deem yourself semi-crunchy, full crunchy, or not crunchy at all......................

. Feel free to comment and tell the world your crunch factor!

The Cloth

I woke up a couple of days ago and decided to go green. We have switched our paper napkins for cloth napkins and our disposable training pants for cloth training pants.

I have been feverishly sewing the CUTEST training pants for my dear W#1. This is the explanation for the crick in my neck and the hunch in my back. (I will not go as far as to tell you that I am also switching out W#2's disposables for cloth as well, you may think I have lost my mind)

Here is a picture of my W#1's first pair of homemade cloth training pants - as modeled by him!

And a view from the back

And here we decided that worst case scenario, W#2 could wear it as a winter hat

Twister

"Elf on the Shelf" brought Twister to the kids a couple of days before Christmas and we ALL played, even Mom and Dad and Houston!! What fun! Of course this could only be played with family IN the privacy of your own home!! HAHA!

Chocolate Chicken

Yep....you heard me right CHOCOLATE CHICKEN!!

My children have 2 favorite aunts (politically correct statement) and 1 of those aunts LOVES to take care of these rascals when she is in town! Well is almost seems that at the very time she has planned a vacation to Alex, my need for a babysitter is exaggerated!! Isn't that convenient?? haha.

Well......during this last trip my boys became extremely ill and Auntie P. took care of them during frequent trips to the Dr. and ER.

Upon returning from 1 visit, the kids met me at the door jumping up and down talking about chocolate chicken. Yep....you heard right, they had chicken nuggets with chocolate dipping sauce.

Ah..the joys of being able to spoil and them and then leave......thanks P.

Now we have to have chocolate chicken EVERY day..:)

Hannah's Visit From Santa Claus!

Hannah had a visit from Santa at her school. It was so sweet that Santa brought the children wrapped books!


Did I mention Hannah is half puppy these days?

With an unspoken effort to shy away from the commercialism of Christmas this year, Santa knew just what to bring. He brought her a pop-up nativity story! It was such a CUTE book! In fact all the other children were crowding around Hannah and I to read her book. What was funny was that all the other books that we saw were about Santa and toys and the North Pole.

Maybe we shouldn't judge children so quickly.

Just maybe if they had the chance to really choose......

......................they would choose to celebrate the real Reason for the Season

.....go figure.

The Best Christmas Pagent Ever

Here is Abi and her friend K. They are so funny when they get together! Oh, I can hardly keep up!

I am SOSOSOSO proud of my little darling Abigail! She was in our church Christmas play this year and had such an antimated part!! She has always had a very playfully sassy attitude and we knew if God did not use it for his glory then it may give us trouble in her teens.

Here Abi is playing the bully part of Imogene Herdman

Well in my opinion God did use it for his Glory as she was cast as Imogene in the Best Christmas Pagent Ever!! It was hilarious! I could not stop laughing!

Here is Hannah and her little friend K. (Thanks Kayla, I totally stole your pics)

Hannah was quite upset (jealous) because she was not on stage. She actually cried after the play and said "Now Abi is not my sister anymore!" Then when we started to watch the DVD again yesterday and she went and sat down, facing away from the the t.v. and crossed her arms. Would not even watch the DVD....HAHA!! What a riot.

Toilet Paper

Abigail and I were unloading groceries before we headed out the door for her play practice the other night. When I returned I asked Hannah - my born organized child - to go arrange the toilet paper in the bathroom. I knew that with her extreme sense of order she would take the paper out of the package, place it on the shelf and throw the plastic wrapper in which it came into the trash.

She very politely did as she was asked then soon returned to playing with William.

An hour or so later I walked into the bathroom to find all of my toilet paper arranged....:)

haha

Keepers At Home

We have decided to implement a "girls/boys" project night on Monday nights. This will be a time for Billy and I to share/define the male/female roles in our home. For the girls I am taking my version of "Keepers at Home" and teaching the girls how to do things that will be required of them when they have their own home. This mainly focuses on the fun things in homemaking. Decoration/not really so much cleaning.

Well this first Monday we decided to conquer wreath making. We collected many pine cones out of the front yard. The tree we have produces HUGE beautiful pine cones. Seeing as I have made many a wreath from grapevine and latex flowers, I decided that we should make pine cone wreaths for the doors. Well we started to make them one way.....then that wasnt working, so we tried another way.......well needless to say after you see the pics............It just didnt work out so well.
The lesson for our first "Keepers at Home" club meeting was: When something you are making does not work out, have fun, and remember next time to find some directions.....hehehe

Marching into Fall

Yes I know I am WAY behind on my blogging but there are a few stories that are worth sharing.

My Ol'Goat* is alway one to try to make any type of work fun. As he pulled out the scarecrows (Nov 1) to put in the yard, he let Hannah and Will each pick their favorite one. Then he proceeded to lead the children in a "March of the scarecrows."

They marched from the back storage area, around the side of house, and into the front yard where the scarecrows were placed and were to remain until Christmas decorations went up.

Aren't they just some stinkin' cute kids!!!

*Ol'Goat is Billy's self-selected "papa" name. We decided to go ahead an implement it so that it will have years of practice before the first grandbaby arrives. The funny thing is that it will end up being "Ogo."

What Do you do?

Seriously, what do you do when.........

........your kids are sick
........you've been up 6 of the 8 hours of sleep time with a baby
.......there are dishes in the sink
.......there is laundry in baskets needing to be washed
........there is laundry on the couch needing to be folded
.......there are scarves/hats/mittens to be made
.......I owe people bows
.......my husband is not coming home on time

You laugh...........there is always tomorrow!

Voting

Bill and I usually divide up the kids to go vote with us. This year I took the boys and William got to push the buttons. This was his first presidential election. Abigail went with her dad and Hannah decided she just wanted to play outside.

Actually I realized that I have given birth to 3 children since the last presidential election! WOW! I have a productive term! I will truly miss President Bush.

Mr. Bumbo

Mr. Bumbo is a little name we like to call the Bumbo seat. This seat enables your baby to sit up as soon as he/she can barely hold their head up. Last night we introduced Wyatt to Mr. Bumbo and he LOVE IT.....

For a little while...........

Welcome Back from the Closet Mr. Bumbo!

Tribute to Smokey Joe

Saturday October 18th, I had a temporary lapse in judgement and allowed Abigail to buy a dog. It was a cute dog, but still a dog.

I am not and never will be a dog person.

We sent him back, and I went to bleaching my floors....

....Poor Abi

Mr. Dotty Pants

While Abigail was vacuuming (she had floor duty this night) she started screaming because she had vacuumed up a lizard. She dropped the vacuum and started running around the kitchen. "Abi, turn the vacuum off!" I yelled over the roaring machine. As soon as the suction let loose, a poor little lizard drunkenly sauntered out of the bristles below our Oreck. Abi immediately grabbed a plastic cup and covered the lizard. "DAD! DAD! DAD! COME HERE!!" Abi screamed with amazing fear.

Of course Billy came running into the kitchen with this super hero face on, picked up a paper plate and tried to maneuver the crawling lizard from the floor onto the plate, all while staying under the cup. He successed and after the lizard was turned upside down, dropping into the cup, Bill set the plate down with a lizard tail still on it swinging back and forth. He had chopped the poor things tail off with a cup! What a weapon! On the way out the door they encountered a crying Hannah who wanted the lizard as a pet and named him Mr. Dotty Pants. I am assuming it was because he was spotted.

She then wanted to let him go back to his mommy so he would not get in trouble for being gone so long.

She was happy for a while.........

Then she cried again.

Ahhh the stresses of a 3-year-old

Breastmilk

Having decided to breastfeed my babies as long as I was able, I planned for the day when one of the two older "babies" would ask me to try the milk. I have read about this happening in books and I just knew one of them would want to nurse. William and Hannah both were intrigued by the sight of the baby constantly attached to one of moms boobs. Then one day Hannah came into my room and sat down on the bed with me and look at the baby who was nursing. She then looked up at me, down at the baby, and then back up at me. Very sweetly she said "Mom, why does the baby like breast milk?" "Well Hannah, breastmilk is best for the baby and it is important for him drink it while he is a baby."

Hannah thought for a minute and finally asked the long awaited question "Can I have a drink?"

BOOM there it is, me in all my infinite wisdom was smart to be prepared and "role play" this senario in my head a million time previously. I looked at Hannah very calmly and asked, "You would like a drink of breastmilk?"

Hannah then looked at me with a shocking disgust and answered......."

No, of juice!"