On boredom and baseball weather...

Ok, baseball practice officially starts for the older boys next week, so this cold weather needs to get out of town ASAP. Otherwise, I might have to break our "no-movies-in-the-van-unless-it's-a-long-trip" rule to pass the practice time with the little ones while we wait. And let's just say that this momma does NOT like to break rules unless she has to.

So we continue to get creative indoors, and this might just be my favorite idea yet. You guessed it, I'm letting my kids watch way too much TV putting my kids to work!

With each addition to our family, the love has certainly increased, and so has the workload around the house. We have a family mentality around here. We help each other. And it's not for pay...usually. It's for what we like to call a "happy heart." Now before you get the wrong idea, check this out. Work can be fun. And I mean lots of fun. It's all in the presentation, I like to think. I can demand in a grumpy voice for my kids to pick up their toys, and it'll get done, but not without some attitudes (and probably some compromised work). Or, I can turn on some 80's Gold worship music really loud, set the timer, and challenge the boys to some sweet dance moves while they pick up and try to beat their previous record in the "cleaning time challenge". Hmm... I know which one I'd respond to better.

I've been going through the kids' clothes sorting out sizes and seasons (those tubs are a bit overwhelming, aren't they?!), and came across lots of things Chase had outgrown that needed to be returned to the ever-so-generous Costello family. When I say generous, I mean that we're spoiled. Big time. Only the Costellos would let us borrow, not one, but three pair of the same size Crocs for a two year old to run in all summer long. Nice.

So because we try to be responsible (ok, so really we just have a two year old who likes to get really dirty), we had some scrubbing to do before the Crocs went back to their home. I stuck Jack and Chase on the job, and they took their job seriously. We played music really loud, they talked and laughed together, and they got to use as much soap and water as they wanted. My OCD wanted to monitor the soap and water amounts, but you can't spoil all the fun when you ask your kids to work. And we talked about responsibility. About how when you borrow something from someone, you want to give it back to them in just as great of shape as when you got it. And instead of that turning into a lecture, it turned into a great conversation about how much we love Cade and Jace and want to bless them. Ah, can you feel the love?! They might have even forgotten momentarily that they were working...

Clean shoes and "happy hearts," and everyone wins, right? Turns out they're getting smarter by the day, so I'm not sure how long I'm going to get away with this method. Here's another news flash: I'm not always patient and creative when it comes to getting my kids to accomplish a task (heh, I had you fooled, didn't I?). Sometimes the work just plain needs to be done, no questions asked. Kids dilly-dally and days get long. But we're family.

We work together. We play together. We might as well have fun while we're doing it. I remind myself of this often. I am 35, you know. :)

"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." - e.e. cummings

"...she can laugh at the days to come." - Proverbs 31:25

A Day in the Life...

These two are pals (I typed "buds" at first, but realized that I now have a girl to consider), in a limited baby sort of way. Chase can't wait until Tess is ready to do something besides occupy his mom's precious time. Like play dress up. We certainly need a Tinkerbell around here to round out the cast.

She has no idea what she's in for.

Tess - 8 months!

Making the Ordinary Extraordinary...

I hear this phrase often in my house: "Mom, can we do an activity?"

Now this is code for different things depending on the child.

Jack: It has to involve multiple, complicated steps with materials that we never have on hand, like a laser beam or a jet engine.

Trey: It's crafty and artistic in nature, but make it simple, or he'll get frustrated easily. This will make him whine for a half hour straight, all while I'm in the middle of making supper, the phone is ringing, and the baby needs to eat.

Chase: Lay lots of paper towel down, and plan on at least one spill of the paint rinse water. If scissors are involved, clear out anything of value, including all clothes that he is wearing. Oh, and be prepared to intervene every 12 seconds.

So when they ask to do an activity, my first logical response is, "Sure, who wants to color?!"

Of course not. It could never be that easy.

Plain old coloring has lost my children's interest, especially in the wintertime - when all of a sudden nothing is as interesting as it used to be.

So we resorted to this, and it was a huge hit:

Put them on the floor, and miracles happen. I'm not sure why this is, but somehow by simply changing the location, coloring became the coolest adventure ever. And they were entertained for more than 15 minutes. No water spilled, scissor slits through pants or lasers needed. And I barely intervened (except to help Chase practice writing his name). Sometimes I have to stop being 35 and get into the head of a 7, or 6, or 2 year old... and what do you know?

The ordinary becomes extraordinary all over again.

I should have gone to college for this stuff.

Surviving the Winter, one small extraordinary moment at a time...

Checkin' In...

Since I've yet to download LOTS of pictures (still documenting our Winter activities, you know!) and it's been forever since I posted, thought I'd tide you over with some pictures of the boys...

More to come soon (including lots of girlie pictures - her hair is officially long enough now for a hair bow!)...

Idea #3 - to a limited audience...

Winter be gone (and the sickness that goes with it!)! But while we (not so patiently) wait, here's a wise investment idea...

If you're in the market for a new washer and dryer like we were recently, I would strongly suggest a front-loader duo. Not only does it get your clothes really clean, the view could potentially entertain your kids for hours. Money well spent, folks.

Keeping your sanity, Part 2...

Weary of winter?

Idea #2: Bake with your kids!

It's rare that I make something in the kitchen without at least 2 -if not 6- extra hands! Much of the time I love this. Sometimes, though, I struggle with the desire to be more efficient (so much to be done, and the girl only naps for so long!). But for now, I'll try to not wish these days away, because soon they'll want to do something else way cooler than food prep with their mom. The bread machine started off on the counter, I promise, but I soon found a two year old trying to climb up the cabinets to watch while it was kneading. Now I just start the cycle on the floor every time. Gotta get practical with a monkey in the house.

Our favorite is Honey Wheat Bread with almonds! Mmm... there's nothing like warm bread on a cold day...

Preventing the Winter Blues

If you haven't noticed lately, it's cold outside. At least it is where we live! Jack came home from school this week saying that the official town Ground Hog saw his shadow, so we're expecting at least six more weeks of Winter around here (good thing that kid goes to school or I would have never known!). With four little ones, we don't venture out much in weather like this. I think my record lately for not stepping foot out of the house is something like eight days straight. Yeah. So to keep our sanity until the boys can run and play outside, we've had to get a little creative.

In case you're on the verge of loosing your sanity too, we thought we'd share some of our ideas with you!

Idea #1: Build a fort. Then let your kids eat lunch in it. But don't leave the lunch dishes in there until the next day. The food is much harder to clean off when this happens. And is it just me, or does your two year old always find the hidden spoiled sippy cup of milk and attempt to drink it?

More ideas to come....

What have you been doing indoors this Winter?

Here we go again

Tess has her turn at ear tube surgery tomorrow morning. Oh good, because now she won't feel left out! This makes three out of four kids, and actually the fifth set of tubes (not counting Trey's adenoidectomy and my tonsillectomy from the same guy... he likes us!!). We're happy to get to this point. Her hearing is delayed, levels were even lower at her last appointment, and her eardrums have never vibrated since she was born. We're so thankful for the screening in the hospital that clued us in on everything so early! All of that to say that we're ready!

**Update on The Girl: She's doing great! It was a short night of sleep for the Mom, though! I woke Tess up at 11:30pm last night to give her one last feeding before the no-food-after-midnight stipulation. She did wake up at her normal 4:00am, but with a little work I was able to get her back to sleep without feeding her. I, however, stayed up to shower, get ready, throw a load of laundry in, write notes to my school boys, and get Tess's things together to take to the hospital. We left at 5:30am and I was amazed at Tess's disposition with no breakfast and less-than-normal sleep. She was so happy and kept smiling at all of the nurses! She played well and stayed awake the whole time while we waited until her 7:30am surgery time, only getting slightly sleepy towards the end. Afterwards, it took a bit of time for her to come out of the anesthesia. She couldn't keep her eyes open and cried on and off for about an hour. Eventually the drugs kicked in and she settled into a deep sleep. We got home before lunch and she ate great and seemed like her old self again. She's been sleeping a lot today, and I'm actually off to wake her up before she gets her schedule confused. Thank you all for your prayers! The Lord certainly gave us His favor in many little details of the day, and we're happy that she finally has some relief!

Now I'm a Believer...

This baby boy turned 6 years old in December. Can you believe that?! Let me just say that those sweet blue eyes and pretty eyelashes light up even the hardest of days for me. Trey truly is my joy. I tell him that often, and he crashes into me with the biggest hug every time. Trey came just 16 months after Jack, and his babyhood was sort of a blur to me. But what I do remember is that out of all of my babies, he was the least needy. And he still has the ability to do his own thing in a happy sort of way... well, most of the time! He bounces around and has a hard time being quiet, mostly because he is just excited about life. He is creative and artistic, and I said out loud the other day that "I wish I could dance like Trey". The boy has some moves, and a gift for music that I can't wait to see blossom one day. Trey cares about people, and cried the other night when I told him to be firm with a girl at school who has been picking on him (don't worry, she's only secretly in love with him!). He's the first to share or give up a turn for someone else. He makes a new friend at the McDonald's Playplace exactly 30 seconds after we arrive. He begs to read the Bible every night. And he gets his baby sister to smile like no one else can. Now, we're still working on the whining and not interrupting others, but he's come a long way since he started Kindergarten, so there's hope!

He's been six for a month now, but I still wanted to share some pictures from his party since we took the big plunge. You guessed it. THE Chuck E. Cheese's plunge. Now if you're a close friend of mine, I know what you're thinking. That the day would never come. The truth is that I've never been a big fan of this place in the past. Too many kids acting like crazies, the noise volume, and the never-enough-tokens-to-satisfy-any-child dilemma. Oh, and then there's the whole ticket system. Which gets you nothing, except for maybe a microscopic plastic spider for something like 1000 tickets. Which makes your child want more tokens. Are you sensing the cycle (and the humor!) here? And all the while I'm trying to teach my kids to be frugal. But suddenly I'm a believer. And I'll tell you why...

First of all, look at this face. That is one happy boy. And sometimes it's OK

that it's all about the experience, and nothing about what you take home with you,

except for a very happy kid.

Secondly, we scored big. I shouldn't let you in on my little secret, but we're all friends here and you deserve to know. If you book a party at 10am or earlier, the place is empty. Literally empty in our case until we showed up. Nice. We had our own space to be crazy (space which incidentally had doubled in size the day before, when they opened up the newly remodeled part for the first time ever. Twice the games, twice the fun! What timing - a total accident.). And, the best part.... any party before 10am on a Saturday gets you DOUBLE TOKENS! That's right. Instead of each child getting 20 tokens, they got 40! Definitely enough tokens to get that plastic spider if you play your cards - uh, I mean tokens - right. I like this picture for two reasons: One, because Trey never put his tokens down when he was playing a game. Like someone (Chase) was going to steal them or something. And two, because the shot of Tyler in the background is totally hilarious. That's the Dad alright, feverishly feeding the ticket counting machine, after he had convinced all of the kids to pool their tickets together so they could get one big item to give to Trey for his birthday. Meanie.

The most entertaining part of the day might have been these two, who bought some tokens for themselves and then went back to buy some more. Not sure what Grandma Cain was saying here, but they were both a little competitive, to put it mildly. The party was over and we almost had to leave them there because we couldn't pull them away from the machines. And GrandDad. Oh yeah. He can dance with Chuck like nobody's business.

Now people, don't everyone show up at Chuck E. Cheese's before 10am on a Saturday morning. If you do, then I might be back at square one. :) Or, you might just get talked out of your hard-earned tickets. I wouldn't risk it if I were you.

Christmas in a blur...

...because that's how it felt! It was busy, fun, and tiring with four little people who definitely needed more sleep than they got!

We started off celebrating with Tyler's family in mid-December. Pa and Nana came for Jack and Trey's school Christmas program and stayed the weekend with us. I didn't even have all the stockings hung yet... I was waiting for Tyler to place another nail for Tess's stocking! Decorating went a lot slower for sure this year with a baby in the house.

Christmas morning at our house! Tyler had to work Christmas Day this year, but he was able to go in for the evening shift so we could spend the morning together. What a blessing!

Boys in their jammies! And, as of today... the living room still isn't cleaned up. Hmmm... Guitar Hero World Tour. Not sure if this was for the boys or for the Dad. Either way, these boys can rock. The Mom, on the other hand, has some work to do. I got kicked singing Michael Jackson's "Beat It." Can you believe that? I know, I was shocked too.

Tyler had some time off around New Year's, so we headed to Mom and Dave's in Fort Wayne for stop one of our trip. Trey got the circle sled that he asked for from Garrett and Natalie. Thanks guys... that's way better than a bunch of random weapons (scroll down to Jack and Trey's Christmas list post if you missed it!).

At Mom and Dave's. We're missing at least half a dozen kids in this picture...

Onto Dad and Kim's in Cincinnati for the remainder of our trip. This picture shows one of my favorite parts of Christmas at their house... the stockings (22 here in all - isn't that awesome?!)!

Thought this picture captured the chaos well! :)

Silly stocking stuffers!

Thanks so much to all of our families for housing, feeding and loving on us. We love being with you!! Your gifts were so generous, and now we need to get rid of some old toys to make everything fit!

We're still recovering from the trip... Tess got her first tooth the day after we got home (that explained a lot!), and Trey missed his first day back to school today due to a fever. Whew, we're pooped! Now, I'm off to try to find my living room floor again. Oh, and to buy some batteries.

Attempting the impossible...

Do you know the likelihood of six people looking decent in one picture? (and it wasn't always the kids' fault!)We were seriously lucky to get one where everyone was looking... (we really do have happy children!)

Most... looked like this! :)

(Thanks Phil and Sarah, for being SO patient with us!)

Merry Christmas, from our crazy family to yours.

Up on the Housetop...

... I would have taken reindeer, trust me. But they would have slid right off in the ice storm, and then they wouldn't have been able to eat the magic oats with glitter that Jack made for them in his class at school. For as sharp as that kid is, I can't believe that HE believes, still. I hope he doesn't read this. I digress.

So, at 4:30am yesterday morning we wake up to this tree falling into our yard. The neighbor's light flips on at the same time ours does, because it was that loud. It was still dark out so it was hard to see how much had fallen, but we were pleased that it missed the house, barely. Tyler decides to go ahead and get ready for work, anticipating a longer-than-normal commute. A little after 5am, the real monster hits with a huge crash, right on top of our roof. I ran to get the boys from their bedrooms, not knowing exactly where it hit. Ends up it landed on the third bay of the garage, puncturing through the attic and our upstairs bathroom. We have some roof, siding, trim, attic, ceiling, drywall, moisture issues, but in a very contained area.

The contractor came out today and temporarily patched the holes until our insurance guy comes out on Monday. We have fans and dehumidifiers going making our bathroom off limits, but the boys are thrilled about that since that means they get to take a bubble bath downstairs every night until it gets fixed! And I'm trying to not get too excited that they might have to paint my whole bathroom... that'd be a major bonus, since it's been needing a fresh coat for quite some time. Overall, we're some pretty thankful people. The top corner of the house behind the bathroom is Chase's room. I can live without my bathroom for a few days after all.

The Tree... a picture story by the Daugherty boys

"Yes, Whitney, I know you want to go get a tree. You've told me about a million times, but you're not breaking my 'Absolutely no Christmas decorating until after Thanksgiving' rule. I know it's only 19 days until Christmas, but I'm the practical one here, and we don't want the tree to die before the actual day. Anyway, I can't stay awake long enough to even think about it." - Tyler, slightly paraphrased, after working the overnight shift for seven nights straight.

"Do we have to get a tree, or can we just ride this thing all day?" "It's just me, Chase. And I'm really, really cold. But if you tell me to smile, I'll try really hard." "It's so cold, I hope that it'll never be cold ever, ever again. Ever." - Trey, showing off the five teeth he skillfully shifted in a sledding collision the week before. "When are we gonna get off of this thing?" - real words from Jack

"Dad says this is THE one, but it looks just like all of the other ones if you ask me. Either way I'm relieved. Did I mention that I'm really cold?"

"My favorite part was the grill. Not the tree, not the experience. The grill." - Trey, warming his hands, and getting his coat really stinky by the fire.

"Hey, isn't this the spot where my Mom peed her pants that one year? Nevermind that she was pregnant and Daddy was taking way too long looking for the perfect tree, and she was racing us in between the tree rows to pass the time. We'd be in trouble if we peed our pants. Hey guys, let's never let her forget that story, ok?"

"Hey, would you mind taking a picture of our family, fast? It's really cold out here." - Whitney, all smiles after coming out of the warm van with Tess for approximately 2 minutes to get a family picture, and right after reminding Tyler that it was a whole lot warmer right around Thanksgiving.

Tis the Season...

If you're like me, you can remember J.C. Penney catalogs. What fun it was to flip through that huge book over and over again this time of year, dreaming of what Santa might bring for Christmas. After much admiration, page corners were turned down, and wished for items were carefully and deliberately circled and initialed by all the kids in the house. If it weren't for the Internet and the environment, I'd probably still be pouring through that thing.

Well, apparently my boys don't need catalogs. One morning before school last week, they sat at the breakfast table (self-initiated) and deliberated for a long and hard while. They whispered back and forth to each other while Jack wrote as quickly as he could. I thought they were coloring and went about my business. They finished their breakfast and headed to the bus stop and off to school. As I cleared the table later that morning, I found this: You should know by now that I don't make this stuff up. I'm going to have to laminate this or something.

Not that the season's focus should be all about presents, but I'm all for getting something cool for my kids for Christmas. My parents did it. I finally got my dream come true in junior high I think it was... the 13 inch black and white TV. Oh, you got one too (but the real question is, did yours go to college with you?)? Then there was the year that I got everything Smurf. Don't ask.

Anyway, I think these two might be a bit disappointed this year from the looks of this list. We'll have to see what Santa comes up with.