Crying over spilled popcorn and other things...

Let's see... Carson spilled popcorn all over the floor. It was our afternoon snack. I'm so glad I decided to share with her. I asked her to put the popcorn in the trash can... This is what she did :)

She emptied the contents of the trash can on the floor and failed to pick up the popcorn. It must have been in the way I asked her to do it...

Here is Morgan, trying to make a clean getaway from his mess...

Ironically, he has just one cupboard that he keeps several playdates with each day. It's the same one that Carson always messed with. I pick up the dishes and glasses at least 3 to 4 times a day. I only wash the ones that Carson puts her feet in...

All about Carson...

Everyday when we are getting ready, Carson asks me what we are going to do... She asks if we can go to Hanah's house and swim (a girl in our ward who watches the kids for us), if we can go to Aunt Mandee's house, if she can see Anna - a friend from church, if we can go to the library, if she can see Mema and Papa, where is Daddy?, where is Cameron, Rylee and Jordan?, where is Parker, Hayley and Addison, if we can go to Mary Jo's house (a friend in Wellsville, UT) and numerous other requests. Yesterday I had to go the library to take all of our books and DVD's back and pay a huge fine ($2.20 - not bad) so that we could check out some more books. She got it in her head that she was "going to school" and wanted to wear her backpack (Dora, thanks to Mema) to the library. It was wonderful because of the backpack, she wouldn't let me carry her or be in the stroller, she had to walk in all by herself! It was a lovely feeling to have my oldest stubborn child, finally exert some independence :)

We are kind of trying to do the potty-training thing right now! It's going to kill me. Carson insists in the morning to wear underwear and will sit on the toilet for about 15 seconds and then she is done. She has not had one successful attempt at going either in the big toilet or her little potty chair that we can move around the house. However, she has had several attempts at seeing how much she can go on the floor and in her underwear before Mom finds her... I just don't think we are ready yet. So hopefully, she'll drop it for awhile. Even in a week or two, she may be ready.

What we are having for dinner tonight...

I was just sitting at the table, having a late breakfast with Carson, and decided that I was going to make one of my favorite meals tonight... White Chili. I found this wonderful recipe in Betty Crocker's New Cookbook (8th Edition). I have had White Chili before and have always been on the lookout for a good recipe. Who knew that it would be right under my nose in my cookbook sitting on my shelf in the kitchen. I have made this on several occasions for church events, potlucks and dinners at our house. Usually, the pan is empty by the end of the event/night.

1/4 cup butter
1 large onion, chopped (1 cup)
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
4 cups cubed chicken or turkey
4 cups chicken broth
2 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro (I used dried)
1 Tbsp dried basil leaves
2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 cans (15-16 oz each) great northern beans, undrained
1 medium tomato, chopped (3/4 cup) - I have used Rotel or petite diced tomatoes or whatever I have at the moment
Tortilla chips

Melt butter in Dutch oven over medium heat. Cook onion and garlic in butter, stirring occasionally, until onion is tender. Stir in remaining ingredients except tomato. Heat to boiling; reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. (After I cook the onion and garlic, I put it along with all the other ingredients into my crock pot on high for an hour and then low for 3-4 hours. I stir in the tomatoes about 15 minutes before I am going to serve it)

Serve with tomato and tortilla chips - YUMMY!

I also am going to try something new today and use dried beans (which reminds me I need to go check them - I am doing a quick soak)... MAN! I may have boiled them a bit too long :( We'll see in an hour if I have soggy beans.

Enjoy the Journey

I just was looking up some of my favorite websites and I found that quote... It is from www.vinylthatinspires.com, from The Four Sisters store in Shelley Idaho. It is a great website. They now have a new website, where you can download their templates for a minimal charge, if you have a vinyl machine or know someone who does, or if you live 1200 miles away like I do! I can still get their great stuff from someone I know here.

I am going to start a list of my favorite quotes... and post them on this blog. My first one will be "Enjoy the Journey". Another favorite one is "Press on, Regardless". I feel like that describes my life.

I need to figure out a name for my Monday when the older kids go back to their mom's house for a week. It's a day that I usually don't get much done because I think I'm so worn out from the previous week (this time it was two weeks)... It's a good thing that Morgan still takes two naps because he needed them today. Carson and Morgan have to give up any kind of schedule they have when we do have the older kids because naps are interrupted to go pick them up from school, bedtime is never the same because of different nightly activities and the house is a lot busier and louder with the older three that even if I can get Morgan down for a nap, it usually doesn't last long because he gets woken up from some sound, somewhere. Well, not much excitement here today but this week is going to be a great week. Bryan helped me tremendously over the weekend and so our house is in somewhat of a wonderful order and I am going to keep going with it and make sure it stays that way all week :) hee hee hopefully, it works!

Man, you have your hands full...

Can I just say, that I get so tired of hearing this comment? It might sound nice, but it really means one of several things:

1. Why in the world would you have so many children...
2. One, two, three, four, and five -- are they all yours?
3. How dare you come into our establishment with (gasp!) five children...
4. Are you crazy?

Whenever I have all five children with me, I will invariably hear this everywhere I go. To me, it's not a big deal, growing up in Idaho where everyone had large families, but for some reason, you would think we are imposing on people, because of our children. Mostly, I just smile, sometimes I get a little frustrated and I will say, "The three older ones are my step-children, the two little ones are mine!" which really doesn't change the situation because they are with me a lot AND it's not like I'm a part-time parent. This does appease people, though I don't know why.

I had to go downtown Springfield this afternoon to turn in my application to become a substitute teacher. The Sangamon County Regional Office of Education (ROE) office is in the Sangamon County Complex building. This is a rather large building which also houses the Sherriff's office, County Clerk, District Court and many other offices. There can also be questionable characters hanging around the building so of course, there is security at each door. There are metal detectors, a conveyer belt to put your stuff on along with a uniformed officer at each entrance.

I had Carson and Morgan in the double stroller - so right away that always gets me lots of looks from bystanders. Then we had to go up the elevator to the third floor. We find the office and my purse is nowhere to be found - I've got to pay $50 just to submit my application so I NEED MY PURSE! I had put Jordan in charge of carrying it for me and he had left it on the the table at the security door. At least that was the last time I could remember him carrying it, because he honestly had NO IDEA what he had done with it. Rylee and Cameron rode the elevator back down to floor one and found it for me (YEAH!) I quickly filled out the remainder of the application while Carson and Cameron were speaking in incredibly loud voices, Cameron was trying to climb up the secretary's desk and Morgan was making funny sounds. I left as quickly as I could. I'm sure they were wondering how in the heck I was going to attempt substitute teaching with so many kids. Sometimes I wonder myself, but I will survive!

I have to wait until the ROE office receives my college transcript from University of Phoenix and send my a temporary certificate. I will then be able to go to Pawnee Schools and have them put me on their substitute teacher list. If they feel so inclined to have me sub for them, I will have to go BACK to the ROE office and be fingerprinted so they can do a background check on me. It should make all of you in Illinois glad to know that they do this much of a check on substitute teachers. The good thing for me, is that the pay is exceptionally good - anywhere from $70-90 per day depending on which school district you choose to work (or which chooses you) and it's flexible for my schedule. Hopefully it works out for our family and we can leave the paper route behind.

Silence...

It is a wonderfully, eerie feeling this morning as I am alone with Morgan and Carson while the other three started school today at Pawnee Elementary & Jr High. It's kind of a "fake" school day anyway, they only are at school for 2 hours. BUT, I have two hours to get ready for the day, go meet with possibly a new babysitter for the two little ones while I work, and just have my thoughts to myself. I also don't have to be a referee for two hours which is wonderful!

I spent this morning doing the paper route, frustrated, thinking of going back to work during the day. I don't want to have to leave my kids, but doing the paper route is taking it's toll on us and both Bryan and I are sooooo tired, plus Sundays are the most difficult day of the week for us with the paper route. We both get up between 3:30 and 3:45 am on Sundays, I help Bryan stuff the ads and then he does the route. He never gets back to sleep before church, so he occasionally falls asleep during his meetings. Preparing for Primary is sometimes a stress on my Sunday mornings because I am the queen of procrastinating. This past Sunday, I presented Sharing Time, took the snack for nursery, made my food assignment (veggie tray and PB&J sandwiches) for our quarterly leadership training meeting right after church plus I had to prepare for my part of presenting at our leadership meeting. I also had to get 4 kids ready for church by myself (Rylee stayed Saturday night at Haley's house), because Bryan didn't get home from delivering until 7:45 am. I know every Sunday isn't like that but it was a busy one. When we got home around 3:30 pm from our meeting, I took a long nap. It was the nicest part of the day:)

One of my favorite websites is sugardoodle.net. It is a wonderful website and I use it all the time for Primary and other things. I was on it this morning just looking at stuff ideas for Family Home Evening, gift ideas and other things...

Cool Quote from today

We had our quarterly inservice meeting today for the primary. I read a really cool quote in my part of the presentation that I want to share with all...

"An unrushed atmosphere is absolutely essential if you are to have the Spirit of the Lord present in your class. Please don't ever forget that. Too many of us rush. We rush right past the Spirit of the Lord trying to beat the clock in some absolutely unnecessary footrace."

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

This was from the Worldwide Leadership Training this spring. I read it and I thought of my job as a parent and how I need to NOT rush past the Spirit of the Lord when I am having teaching moments with each of my children. I need to remember to daily seek the Spirit of the Lord. As we raise these choice little spirits from Heavenly Father, we need to do all in our power so that they feel the love of their Heavenly Father through us, as well as the love that we have for them. We are so lucky to have them in our home. We are blessed.

Yeah, it's almost time for school to start!

I am so excited! The children go back to school next Tuesday, August 22. I am almost giddy with excitement if you can't tell! Please don't think I'm a bad mom because I look forward to my children going to school every year. Honestly, I always look forward to summer break and having the opportunity to spend lots of time together. However, we have had our fun and are in desperate need of a routine!

Life will be changing around here anyway, because I have decided to find a part-time job. Bryan and I are both very tired of the paper route and need something else to do to help out with our monthly expenses. I went to a substitute teachers training yesterday and it was nice. I now have to get my paperwork completed so that I can get on the lists at a couple of schools. I only want to try and do it 2 times a week, sometimes three which will work out well anyway, because Illinois law says I can't sub for more than 90 days in any one school district. So we will see if I like it. It was nice to get out yesterday and be amongst some adults. But oh, how I missed my little ones. I am a little worried about Morgan, he is turning into a mama's boy. He only wants me when we are at home, no one else. He only likes me to feed him and dress him and all that stuff. We haven't been apart many days so it will be an adjustment for him. I just hope that I can get some work and not have to be away too much.

The kids are excited to start school. Jordan will be in Jr High, 7th grade! They have an A and B day so he will never have the same schedule from day to day. We'll see how this works out with everything. He also is going to be starting school without glasses. Not that I am excited about that, but he did end up breaking them a couple of weeks ago because he was mad at Cameron. Since Bry and I have been married this is the third time he has broken his glasses. One time wasn't his fault, he fell at school and broke them, but the other two times, he helped the breaking along! Our insurance will pay for new glasses every year, but our year isn't up, since he just got these glasses this spring.

Rylee is going to be in 4th grade and she has Mrs. Wilmarth, who was also Jordan's 5th grade teacher. I think she is very excited to go to school. I was just going through her 3rd grade scrapbook yesterday getting ready for the new year and noticed on her report card that she had ALL A's except for one class - PE where she got a B (not surprising, that PE was Bryan's favorite subject in school and Jordan and Rylee hate it with a passion!) I was so proud of her, looking at that report card. Sad to say, when I got the report cards, I just shoved them in the front of the kids' books and didn't even look at them. Now getting ready for the new year, I started looking at everything. Time goes by so quickly. Rylee just got back from a trip to Salt Lake City Utah to visit her Aunt Robin and Aunt Lori. She went with Aunt Holly. They had a great time, she even called me a couple of times. It's nice to know that you are missed:)

Cameron will be in 1st grade. They have two new 1st grade teachers this year so he didn't get Rylee or Jordan's 1st grade teachers. And now, I can't remember her name! In my next post, I'll get it down. I think that he is excited to go to school. When we went on Wednesday for Registration, we saw his class list and he was excited about that - there were several kids from his kindergarten class that he knew. Cameron decided that he wants to play soccer again this year so we just signed him up. Let the madness begin! He has twice a week practices and then games on Saturdays. The practices are in Pawnee which according to Yahoo MAPS is 13.2 miles from our house. The games are in Auburn which is 24.5 miles from our house and approximately 40 minute drive one-way, again, according to Yahoo MAPS!

I just wanted to check out the real mileage because I don't want to be exaggerating how much I actually drive. But if you know me at all, probably 75% of the time when I talk on the phone or receive calls, I am in my car driving somewhere! I told my SIL Mandee yesterday that I must be suffering from some disease/disorder because I am tired all the time and in my car driving everybody everywhere! And if there isn't a disease/disorder (it's all mental) I will certainly be the first and they can name it after me!

Carson will be three soon. She is very excited about her birthday. She finally got it when I had my birthday in April and has been asking about hers every since. We did have a cousins party for her while we were in Idaho. I know this is a bit backwards, but I will post pics and document our trip later this week and put it on the blog. I have been meaning to do that and it just hasn't happened.

Morgan is crawling everywhere, putting everything (including, but not limited to, any shoe he can find, leftover food from underneath the table - okay I know that sounds gross, but with five kids, sometimes things fall under the table and I don't realize it for awhile!, scraps of paper from the floor, toys, clothes, whatever actually) in his mouth, and pulling himself up to EVERYTHING that he can! He loves to help me with the dishwasher although, he hasn't figured out yet, that the dirty dishes STAY IN and the clean ones COME OUT. He found his favorite cabinet he loves to unload this past week, so every time I leave him in the kitchen for even a few moments, I come back to dishes and cups everywhere on the floor. He is just so funny. Earlier this summer, I moved all the plastic cups, bowls, plates and sippy cups to a bottom cabinet. This was to make my life easier, so all the children could get their own cups, plates, etc., when they needed them. It has indeed made my life easier until now! But it is just a stage Morgan is going through, so I can live with it.

Well, I have been up since 4 am, helping Bryan with the Sunday papers (stuffing ads) and just putting off preparing my church stuff. I have to do sharing time today AND we have a teacher inservice I need to prepare for. So, now that I've procrastinated enough, I can start working on my inservice lesson. Actually, it's only 10 minutes and I know what I'm talking about, I just wanted to find something nice to go with it.