A Little Perspective

I ran around this morning frantic because the things I've cleaned up lately are all a mess again. It's discouraging. I'm sick of the house being a wreck. It makes me depressed and I think it unnerves the kids too...all the disorder. Honestly, if you look at it like my job, to take care of the house and kids, I expect to be fired any day now because I'm really bad at it. So I decided to go on my home schooling forum to get advice from other moms like me about how they keep their house in order, their kids played with, have alone time, workout, sleep, breathe, etc. I found a post about a mom asking for help to stop yelling at her kids. On one of the posts, there was a link to a blog, on that blog I found this. Coincidence?

Long ago you came to me,

a miracle of firsts,

First smiles and teeth and baby steps

a sunbeam on the burst.

But one day you will move away

and leave to me your past

And I will be left thinking of

a lifetime of your lasts…

The last time that I held a bottle

to your baby lips

The last time that I lifted you

and held you on my hip.

The last night when you woke up crying,

needing to be walked,

When last you crawled up with your blanket

wanting to be rocked.

The last time when you ran to me,

still small enough to hold.

The last time that you said you’d marry

me when you grew old.

Precious, simple moments and

bright flashes from your past-

Would I have held on longer if

I’d known they were your last?

Our last adventure to the park,

your final midday nap,

The last time when you wore your favorite

faded baseball cap.

Your last few hours of kindergarten,

those last few days of first grade,

Your last at bat in Little League,

last colored picture made.

I never said good-bye to all

your yesterdays long passed.

So what about tomorrow-

will I recognize your lasts?

The last time that you catch a frog

in that old backyard pond.

The last time that you run barefoot

across our fresh-cut lawn.

Silly, scattered images

will represent your past.

I keep on taking pictures,

never quite sure of your lasts…

The last time that I comb your hair

or stop a pillow fight.

The last time that I pray with you

and tuck you in at night.

The last time when we cuddle

with a book, just me and you

The last time you jump in our bed

and sleep between us two.

The last piano lesson,

last vacation to the lake.

Your last few weeks of middle school,

last soccer goal you make.

I look ahead and dream of days

that haven’t come to pass.

But as I do, I sometimes miss

today’s sweet, precious lasts…

The last time that I help you with

a math or spelling test.

The last time when I shout that yes,

your room is still a mess.

The last time that you need me for

a ride from here to there.

The last time that you spend the night

with your old tattered bear.

My life keeps moving faster,

stealing precious days that pass,

I want to hold on longer-

want to recognize your lasts…

The last time that you need my help

with details of a dance.

The last time that you ask me for

advice about romance.

The last time that you talk to me

about your hopes and dreams.

The last time that you wear a jersey

for your high school team.

I’ve watched you grow and barely noticed

seasons as they pass.

If I could freeze the hands of time,

I’d hold on to your lasts.

For come some bright fall morning,

you’ll be going far away.

College life will beckon

in a brilliant sort of way.

One last hug, one last good-bye,

one quick and hurried kiss.

One last time to understand

just how much you’ll be missed.

I’ll watch you leave and think how fast

our time together passed.

Let me hold on longer,

God,to every precious last.

In the midst of your busy schedule and laundry and dishes - do not forget to enjoy your children - you never know what thing they will do for the last time today. This season will not last forever.

I think it's kind of eerie how these things keep happening to me. When I feel at the end of my rope (which seems to be a lot lately) some message comes from somewhere to help me out of my funk. So I went to the library to get some books on homemaking. There was one I researched that is checked out of my library until May 15th, but it's at the Frederick one, so I'll have to get there at some point. It's called Home Comforts. I tend to throw myself into researching things I'm interested in, but I've never done it for home making. Maybe that's why my house looks like this. So if I don't get to my blog one night, you'll know I'm reading...or cleaning...or watching my kids sleep...or sleeping myself. I have a feeling I'm about to get really busy. By the way, here's the blog that I read to help kick start my arse in this direction.

http://www.womenlivingwell-courtney.blogspot.com

Enjoy!

You Spin Me Right Round Baby Right Round

Nana came up and watched the kids today, so I could clean. I got some things done, but it doesn't even look like I made a dent. Kevin didn't seem all that thrilled either. ;) I still have a lot to do. During my escapades, Nana was in heaven playing with her grandchildren. Apparently Marley made a beeline for the sit and spin when Logan was on it. Anywhere Renee would set her down away from the sit and spin, Marley would crawl straight for it. So when Logan went down for his nap, we went downstairs...and put Marley on the sit and spin because it's never too early to teach your kids to spin themselves around really fast and get dizzy.

She looks right at home. My new camera does this thing where it shines an orange light when the flash is trying to focus before it takes the picture. Marley does not like this light, so I covered it.

Lesson learned. The orange light is my friend. Of course this would be the picture where she's smiling and has both hands on the sit and spin, which is the picture I wanted and it's all dark.

So I covered the light and then took my finger off when I pushed the button, but Marley wouldn't give me my picture. She gave me this...both hands off and not looking at the camera. Then she decided to tease me.


Here's one hand mom!


How about no hands?


What do you want from me mom?


Ok, here's both hands on the wheel. Oh, eyes open?

I never got the picture I wanted with both hands on the wheel and her smiling, but that's ok. She did give me this which I think is better than with both hands on the darn thing anyway. I love her left eye squinting...that blasted orange light.

Jesus Loves Rory

Tonight we went to Rory's church school for her bible presentation. She was presented a bible from Fr. John, our parish priest. We all went. I think it meant a lot to Rory. When we got there, they just had them color a paper waiting for everyone. Rory even got one for Logan to color. They all commented on what a nice sister she was.
When Fr. John got there, they lined up and sang songs for him. In case you notice a change in quality of the pics, it's because Kevin took the rest of these. ;)
When Fr. John came in, they were all asked to sit on the floor "Criss, cross, applesauce."

Rory, the rule breaker

Then she was presented her bible. Fr. John thought the teacher said Laurie. Rory corrected Fr. John. I was sitting there praying that she didn't spell it out for him. She's didn't. She just enunciated it more. He gave her a bible and shaked her hand.

"I'm sorry. It's not Laurie?"

"Oh, Rory."

After all was said and done, they took a group picture. Excuse the little girl on the left trying to escape. There's other pictures where she's not disturbing the shot, but this is the only one with Rory looking at Kevin and not the other lady taking pictures.

All in all it went well. We didn't get home until 7p, but Marley seemed no worse for the wear. She wouldn't eat in the car, so I had to feed her before putting her down.

Out of all the pictures I like this one the best.

She doesn't look anything like the whiny, crying Rory I had today. She looks like the sweet, simple Rory she normally is. I think this picture captures that beautifully...and yes, Kevin took the picture.

How Will I Know?

If he really loves me...is the rest of the line from the title of this blog. Let me tell you. Last night for our anniversary, Kevin and I went to Outback for dinner. It was nice because we haven't been there in a while. Besides some bad desserts and weird table neighbors, all was good. After that we went to Kohl's. That's right. Here's the secret to knowing he loves you ladies. HE GOES SHOPPING WITH YOU ON WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE A COUPLE DAY. He even searched and picked out clothes for me. If that's not love, someone please tell me what is.

Inevitably I feel bad about it. We should've done something we both wanted to do. I got some cool pants and shoes though, so that makes me happy, which makes him happy, which makes us both happy. Got that or do I need to add a few more commas? We got home late (A.K.A. past 10p dreamfeed time for Marley) and had to rush a bit to get everything done, but all in all it was a good anniversary. Still no itching, so I'll count my blessings.

No pics. Oh ok, just one.

Over and out.

Monday Rest

We had a busy weekend. Saturday morning Kevin and I both made it to the gym. Then he worked outside while the kids played and I cleaned out the minivan. I didn't get it vacuumed, but I had two bags of recycling, one bag of trash, and one trashbag full of laundry. It was pretty bad. The only way I'm going to be able to vacuum is to take the seats out and prolly hold them upside down and shaking them while vacuuming the floor beneath them.

I'm part of a home schooling forum, and someone posed the question last week of how to keep your car clean. The only answer anyone came up with that made sense was to not let the kids eat, play, or bring anything into the car with them. Since we all decided that was inconceivable, we decided that making your kids each bring one thing out when they leave the car MIGHT work. Other than that, keep a trash bag in your car and your fingers crossed at all times. :)

Saturday afternoon we went to my parents house to celebrate my birthday since we were all sick last weekend. We had Olive Garden and cupcakes. I was sitting in front of m birthday cupcakes and trying to light them. Kevin took the flame from me thinking it must be bad luck to light your own candles. Then when they were lit, no one did anything so I started to sing myself Happy Birthday. It was funny. We had a good time.

Sunday morning Nana and Papa came and got Rory and Logan so Kevin and I could spring clean. Kaelyn helped too, but we didn't get much done. Marley decided not to sleep and in order to not wake her with our noise, we sat on the couch watching movies and TV instead. :) She slept but only an hour and a half, so she'll be pretty tired tonight when we celebrate my birthday at Nana and Papa's. We're having wings and french fries. It's my free eat day even though I gained THREE POUNDS this week. Kevin says it's because I was sick and my body held onto every little thing I put it in since it hadn't had anything. Or because it's muscle building. We took out measurements hoping to make me feel better, and I've lost seven inches from my waistline alone. I guess that'll do for making me a little better. After tonight though I think I've gained all seven inches back. I ate A LOT tonight. Oh well, back to the daily grind tomorrow. Oops! I forgot. There is no Monday rest because it's our anniversary tomorrow! There's also no going back to the daily grind since we're going out to dinner. I'll have to plan my eating accordingly.

And to my husband of SEVEN YEARS NOT EXPERIENCING ANY ITCHING...Happy Anniversary. Here's to seven times seventy more! I love you, miss you, want you, and need you

Mar-nourished

I think Marley has proven to be a Bucy because she's about to drive me to drink. The Rotavirus we all had last week has done more damage. Marley's eating hasn't gotten back to what it was. Now she won't even eat her once favorite squash or the sweet potatoes. I've tried other things; rice cakes, yogurt, nothing's working. She'll only eat banana and oatmeal really well...and toast. She might just need to push through and get used to the new taste before she's ok, but how am I supposed to get through this?

Or this?

Would you be able to feed that face? The only way I got yogurt in her was because I told her she had to eat something because I wasn't making any more banana oatmeal. She finished the cup. I'm at a loss with this one. She's driving me crazy, and she's not even eight months. I thought the other three were going to give me a run for my money. I was wrong. Little Marley will be my undoing. Fourth time's a charm.

Because I need some feel good eating kids, I'll leave you with this because it makes me feel better too.

Picture Day

It has been three months since I had a printer that would print out pictures. My printer blew up after I tortured it making Christmas presents last year. It just couldn't hang. It was only two years old. It still prints paper really well though, and for that, I'll keep it around. It seems that with my printer blow out, my emailing pictures had a blow out too. I just stopped doing it. It might have something to do with the fact that my new camera takes 2 hours to upload a picture to email, but that's another story. (Kevin's probably saying something right now about the resolution and all that jazz) Anyway, for my birthday I got a new printer. Thank you Jerry and Renee. I don't know anything about this printer other than the ink is not as expensive as my old printer, and that Jerry has one and likes it. So Kevin is hooking it up now and therefore, my blog will not be long tonight because I have to go play. It's taken me a couple days to hook it up. My driving purpose behind it tonight is a promise to a little guy in my life who wanted nothing more than to put his dinosaurs into the box and "protect them" today. I don't know what he's protecting them from, but that's a pretty big box. And since I hate to have a blog without a picture, here's a picture of my new printer.
I think I'll name her Roxy just because I seem to have a thing with four letter names that start with R. Happy printing!

Happy Earth Day!

Since Rory has school tomorrow, we did our Earth Day crafts and such today. We still have more to do, but some can be done tomorrow as a family. I found some cool crafts online. Here's my favorite...

First we drew a circle on wax paper.

Then we shaved crayons in blue (water), green (land), brown (more land), and white (clouds).

Then we put them in the circle, and it was then that I realized the circle I drew was too big.

Oh well...it's a small world after all. Get it? Sorry if I lost you with that one. After we were done putting all the shavings into a circle, we put another piece of wax paper over it and a paper towel. We ironed it, and this is what we got.
Oh, I forgot to mention that we put a string in the middle of the shavings, and it melted there. From here we cut the wax paper into a circle. We had to be careful not to cut the string though, so it kind of turned out an oblong world. I couldn't get a good picture of it, but here it is.
Isn't that cool? There were also suggestions to do butterflies or hearts. You could really do anything with this idea. It's one of my favorite crafts we've done. I'm going to be using it a lot. The shaving the crayon bit is tedious and not fun, but it gets the job done. Rory's taking her world to show and tell tomorrow. She's really excited about it.

After we were done making our worlds, we headed outside to pick some rocks to paint.

When Logan got home from getting his haircut like this he said, "I look like Dale!" It was so cute.

Rory painted a rock that was for God. She said something really cute about it, but Kevin and I can't remember what it was. Here's Rory's rocks.
The top one is the cross for God. Here's Logan's.

Logan was more interested in painting his arm and the plate that the paints were on than the rocks.

So that was our Earth Day. We're going to plant some herbs and flowers tomorrow for the actual Earth Day, but I think this was fun too. I hope they had fun. I know I did. Happy Birthday Earth!

Dehydration

The rotavirus left us all dehydrated, but none so much as Rory. In case you don't know much about dehydration, let me school you. Take Rory for instance...

Notice the dark circles under her eyes and how they look "sunken." I know her eyes are normally dark, but this is a noticeable difference.

Look at how dry and cracked her lips and skin around her mouth are. Again her lips are normally dry but...

Here's a closer look at her eyes. I always wondered what they meant when they said "sunken." Poor kid.

Luckily she's getting better. Logan's still complaining about his stomach. I'm hoping we'll get a full night's sleep one of these nights. We're averaging Logan crying out for us about three times a night.

On another note, is it just me or does Marley look like a completely different baby in this pic?

What a cutie!!!!!

Back in the Saddle Again

While not all of us are 100%, we are all feeling much better than last week. It was an ugly week. I got sick the night of my birthday. Before that though, we were able to celebrate it a little bit. Here are some of the things I got...
This is my birthday card from Kaelyn. Here's what it reads, and yes, Kaelyn wrote it herself.

Today's a special day
for someone very sweet
Her name is Nora Bucy
And she's one that can't be beat
She always shares a smile
If not on outside, than within
And if a battle's between us
You know that she will win
She's the greatest mom ever
You've probably heard that before
But if you spend time with her
You'll want to stay for more
So wish her Happy Birthday
from beyond and above
She's the one that we all like...
The one that we all love!
I think that's an awesome gift. I don't even care about the grammatical and punctuation errors. That's how good it is.

Logan and Rory got me singing cards...of course.

Rory's card played "Part of your World" from The Little Mermaid. She loves that song and has been singing it. These cards are more for Logan though because he loves dancing to them.

And little Miss Marley gave me something very special. She said, "mama". I know that everyone will think it's babbling, but it's pretty much thought here tha she knows what she's doing and saying. I'm trying to get it on tape to show you all, but I haven't yet. Sorry.

We all already know that Kevin gave me a day of him staying home which was awesome. On Friday, he let me sleep in too. I was still really sick, and I laid on the couch all day nodding off here and there. He took care of the house, the kids, and work (which was really busy that day). It was humbling, and I can't help but think of what I did to deserve all this. It's amazing.

Happy Birthday to me

It's my birthday. I'm tired. Nuff said.

By the way, Kevin took the day off a while ago for my birthday. I think that's an awesome present especially with three sick kids.

Sick Update

So far Logan is getting better and Jerry and Kevin have whatever Logan had/has. Logan didn't do much today. He ran a low grade fever all day and ate a little here and there. He ate dinner better though, so we're hoping he's turning a corner. Jerry started this afternoon with getting sick, and Kevin just came out of the bathroom sick, so he's got the night ahead of him. I mean WE have the night ahead of US. I feel so bad for him because he's been working from home for the past two days because of Logan, and I don't know if he'll be able to not go to work tomorrow. Plus, he's battling a sinus infection.

Today was a normal day. Since Kevin was home, he watched Logan and Marley while I took Rory to a play date at her friend, Juliana's house. I got to talk to Juliana's mom, Jessica, who is in our home school group. I think that possibly Jessica and I were separated at birth. We are living parallel lives, and I'm hopeful that we'll help each other through them. I'm excited at this new friendship. Rory was on cloud nine, and I'm so excited she got to do this today because Logan has been getting quite a lot of attention, and it was nice to have something just for her. I guess she wasn't sick after all.

Now because this has been all about sickness, I thought I'd add some pictures for some fun.

This is Kaelyn enjoying her first piece of gum in forty days. She gave it up for Lent.

This was Logan in the rain. He's just experienced an umbrella earlier in the week, and he can't get enough of it.

This is a fake bug that Logan got from Chuck-E-Cheese. Marley seems to like it. In case you are trying to tell yourself, "That's disgusting. She wouldn't do that if she knew what it was."
She knows, and she's still fine with it.
Rory took my camera the other day, and here's one of the MANY pictures she took. Some other ones include...
ummmmmm

This is a library book.

Yes, this is her dresser upside down.

And on that note, I'm retiring for the night. In the hour it took me to write this, Kaelyn just got sick. Everyone pray that Marley doesn't get this. Please.

Sick...AGAIN!

We had a great Easter. We made it to church at 7a, went to see Nana before her surgery (all is well and she is happy and drugged), and went to my parents for Easter dinner. It was a hectic day, as it usually is and the kids just kept truckin'. Until....1030p last night. We heard unfriendly sounds from Logan, and then a full on crying fit. We ran upstairs, and he had vomited all over his crib. I'll save the details. We cleaned up, changed him, and laid him and Rory (cuz you know she was up too) back down. We went downstairs and got in bed and heard the same thing again. We cleaned him up, changed him, and laid him and Rory back down. We didn't get downstairs this time before we heard it again. This is 3 pairs of jammies and all the sleepsacks I have in his size unwearable. We put him in regular clothes. He begged to get up, so Kevin picked him up, and he got sick all over him. We moved into the bathroom because that's where Kevin went when it all went down. There we sat with a wash basin. Three more times and two more outfits later, we moved onto the couch. Logan was sleeping in little bursts. Then he would wake up screaming, crying, get sick and go back to sleep. Kevin and I were old pros by this time. At about 215a, Kevin told me to go downstairs and get some sleep. He would stay on the couch with Logan. I went downstairs armed with the phone, so he could intercom me if Logan got sick again. I heard Logan crying at 230a and rushed upstairs in time to clean up. I went back downstairs at 3a and went to sleep. I woke up at 415a and checked on them. All was well, so I went back to sleep. At 6a I came up and Logan and Kevin were awake. I moved Logan onto my lap to give Kevin a break and Logan fell asleep. I tried to move him onto the couch because I had to go feed Marley, and he woke up and cried because he wanted me and I was leaving. It was sad. Kevin calmed him down and even got him to sleep on the couch.
Kevin worked from home, so he could be here. Logan kept asking for apple juice throughout the morning, so we gave it to him. He threw that up at 8a. The rest of the day, he did pretty well. He wanted scrambled eggs eventually, and we let him have some. We put him down for a nap at 1130a because he was just exhausted. He woke at 130p and was still a little whiny here and there. He played a lot though and you wouldn't be able to tell that he was sick all night. Kevin took them to the store at 230p to get Marley some sweet potatoes because we ran out. They got home at 3p, and Logan had thrown up in the Safeway parking lot while Kevin was on the phone with a work issue. It was bad. He got it all over himself and Kevin AGAIN. I called the doc because I'm familiar with viruses that last a little and then get better, but it seemed odd to me that he would be fine all day and start getting sick again. They said something's going around (big surprise) that has kids sick for a couple of days vomiting. We could give him ginger ale or pedialyte by teaspoonfuls every 20 minutes. If that was looking good and he really wanted something, dry cereal could be given. For the last two hours of our day before he went to bed, all that little boy wanted was a banana, and all I would let him have was cheerios and pedialyte (he didn't like the ginger ale). He's in bed now and Rory's complaining that her tummy hurts. We don't know whether she's faking because Logan gets a lot of snuggle time and whatever movie he wants to watch or if she's catching whatever this is from Logan. We're hoping it's the first. I hope you'll understand that there are no pictures to this or anything "fun". I'm beat. The end.

PS- Nana and Papa...I had this great plan to make you potato soup and get well cards. I'm sorry. It's the thought that counts!!!

Happy Birthday Maria!!!

This is my sister, Maria. Those are her boys beside her, Dale on the left and Dayce on the right. It's Maria's birthday today. She's sharing it with Easter, so this will be my blog for Monday. I don't blog on weekends normally because you all read this while at work and such. So Maria's birthday was yesterday in case I lost you somewhere back there, since you'll be reading this Monday, because I don't post on weekends, except for today because it's Easter.
Anyway, Maria is three years older than me, so she got to torture me a lot more than Dita did, and she took advantage of it. That's what sisters are supposed to do. So here is Maria's five things you might not know about her, like I did for Dita.

1. I spent my whole life trying to be her, down to stealing her clothes when she had already gone to school and making sure to have them back before she noticed.

2. She is extremely organized and keeps things clean, which makes me still want to be her.

3. She has protected me all my life except for that one instance when I met New Kids on the Block, but we won't go into that.

4. Some of the best times I can remember were our drives to school when she was a senior and I was a freshman. She would play all these songs and scream the lyrics at the top of her lungs. I'll always remember those moments and treasure them.

5. She is loving, loyal, sensitive, selfless, and my best friend.

Side note to #5. The best friend part took 16 years because she got to torture me longer!!!

Thank you, Maria, for always being there for me even when it's just to listen to me vent for 5 minutes. I hope you had a wonderful birthday yesterday (today) and many more to come. Sorry about your birthday gift. It's a LONG story. I love you and Happy Birthday.

Hoppy Easter!

From mine to yours!

A Day in the life of NOT Martha Stewart

I am not a crafty person. I was not drawn to art as a child like some people are. Just as Auntie Riri used to draw with Kaelyn, we would sit and draw too. She was always better than me, and I just knew art wasn't up my alley. Then I had kids and had to come up with things to do with them that didn't involve electronics. :0 Here's where Family Fun magazine saves my arse...sometimes.
Sam and Nik are out of school for spring break this week. Kaelyn got out of school yesterday. Nana had a doc appt. today, so I got a wild hair up my arse and proposed that the girls come up here and do a craft. It was also because Rory's play date canceled for the second time this week, and she loves her cousins. So it was decided that the girls would come here and everyone would do a craft. And just because... if you're going to kill yourself you might as well mean it, I shot myself in the temple and agreed to let Chloe spend the night last night and join in the craft day. For the math impaired out there, that's seven kids. This totally beats out my Amanda days even though that was an overnighter. And I thought that was birth control...
This morning started out like any other morning. Marley was only up for a short period before having to go to sleep again. Sam and Nik weren't here yet, but I set the stage anyway. I took the two sound machines from Rory and Logan's room and lined them up right next to the two in Marley's room, so she was surrounded by white noise. The girls showed up. I had Chloe and Kaelyn cutting the craft supplies already, so everything would be set. Here's a pic of my insanity.

That doesn't look hard right? All I had to do was blow up balloons, cut a bunch of tissue paper, hang the balloons from the ceiling, and make flour and water paste (otherwise known as paper mache). Easy peasy with seven kids. I took the rug in the living room up and moved the kitchen table in there. I hung everyone's balloons in front of them, made the paste, and had the tissue paper in little containers.
Everyone started except for Rory and Logan because I only had enough seats for the big kids at the kitchen table. So I went downstairs (while Marley was sleeping> GASP!) and got the little table and chairs set for Rory and Logan. I didn't hang their balloons because I am well aware of the concentration and attention span needed for this craft and the fact that my little five-year-old and two-year-old did not possess it. So I began to paste their balloons. One at a time going back and forth waiting for them to get sick of it. It only took about ten minutes, and they were off playing in their room. Marley woke at this time. When I came back upstairs, Chloe had resigned her craft making because the smell of floured water was sickening her.
Sam decided to take over her egg because it was farther along. Then she decided she didn't want to do it anymore and went to play with Rory and Logan. It was down to just Nik and Kaelyn...and they started talking smack.

Nik- "Well, we'll see who finishes first."
Kaelyn- "I don't care who finishes first. We'll see who's is the best."
Nik- "That's fine with me."
Kaelyn- "Me too."

Imagine head jiggling when you're reading all that by the way.

Then the idea of an egg hunt outside was brought up, and Nik headed out the door with Rory, Logan, Sam, and Chloe. Kaelyn said that she had won, and Nik said, "No. I'm just going out to have an egg hunt, and then I'm coming back in to finish." And that was exactly what she did. Sorry...I don't have pictures of the egghunt. I was feeding Marley. I know..selfish.

After going at it for a while, I had to put Marley down for another nap. Rory had been trying to sing "Part of Your World" from the Little Mermaid all morning. I found the tape downstairs and was holding it for Logan nap time, but I put it on when I put Marley down instead. Nik and Kaelyn finished their eggs and were letting them dry. Here's what I came up to from putting Marley down.

First of all, excuse the house, but hey...seven kids. Your eyes are not deceiving you. The Little Mermaid stands the test of time. Every single one of those kids settled in to watch it. You could hear a pin drop if you ignored Marley's serial killer breathing (she has a cold) and the movie. It was amazing. I wanted to take video just so you could hear how quiet they were, but I didn't.

We waited a little bit because Papa was coming on his white horse with lunch for everyone. So when he got there, I took tablecloths out for everyone to lay on the lawn and have a real picnic with McDonald's.

This was a real treat because apparently (and don't tell anyone) kids love picnics! Who knew?! Note...Nik was inside getting something. Sorry. I guess no matter how old you are, sitting on a blanket on the grass is always cool. After all was said and done, I didn't get a pic of Nik's egg. I hear that it turned out great! Here's what Kaelyn has hanging around. That's all tissue paper folks. She hasn't cut the hole out on the other side and finished it yet.

Martha Stewart I may not be, but I'll gladly take the proud Mommy and Aunt award.

Thanks guys, I had a blast.