Snow Day

So today is a snow day, honestly I don't know why as everyone around us only did a 2 hour late start. But I'll take it since it makes for a 4 day weekend and I don't mind having my kiddos home. The hubby decided to work from home. There are days it becomes clear our house isn't big enough and today was one of those days.

But we managed to have some fun watching movies as a family, my big kids read while the little girls took afternoon naps, and I was able to cook up a turkey that had been defrosting for a couple of days now.

Yes, you read right, I wrote turkey.

About 2 weeks before M was born our Parish had Turkey Bingo on a Sunday afternoon. It was simple, pay a $1 for a bingo card and if you won you got a 8 to 10 pound turkey. J is a bingo lover and wasn't about to let a opporunity to play bingo go by. She launched her campaign to attend shortly after the announcement in mass, had endorsements from siblings by the car and since we didn't have anything better to do - we went. I was hoping we might win one turkey since we only bought 6 cards.

After the first game K (the 3 year old) won the first turkey. A few games later J won and the second to last game A won. Yes, within the course of 3 hours we had won 3 ten pound turkeys. K had spent most of the time trying to figure out a name for her turkey, since she thought we were bring home the bird breathing, feathers, and all.

My first thought was to donate one (or two) to the parish food bank but then my very smart hubby pointed out we were expecting a baby any day. A turkey can provide quite a few meals and guess what he was right. However, we did have to have 1 of the turkeys live in my folks freezer until we cooked up the first two turkeys.

So M is just shy of 5 months and I'm cooking up the last. The good Lord always provides and to this family it came in the form of turkeys. Turkey pot pie anyone??

This life is a blessing and what is long in days is short in years!

How Do You Do It??

I get these questions/comments a lot - "I just don't know how you do it!" "How do you it all?" Or my favorite, "Better you than me!" I really want to come back, "with an attitude like that, yes better these children are in my care then yours".

Let make one thing very clear - I don't do it all! I have an amazing husband who always pitches in and we are blessed to have Grandparents live in town, so they help too. And several times a week I go to bed when the kitchen is still a mess, there are loads of laundry that need to be folded (or put away), paper work to do, or just the general stuff left undone. Guess what - the world didn't end and my house moved along at a slower pace but that's ok.

However, I do have a few tricks that I have picked up that does make things move a little smoother!

1. I run the dishwasher daily - no exceptions! These means if only the top rack is full but the bottom isn't, I still run it. I found if I waited until the dishwasher was full, I was over ran by dishes. There for awhile we didn't have a dishwasher and it always seemed I was over run by dishes. My Grandma for a 3rd baby/Christmas gift gave us a full size portable dishwasher. It not only was the single best gift anyone has ever given, it now one of those things I pretty much refuse to live without! Dishwasher = Cleaner kitchen.

2. My kids have chores. Chores are issues at your 3rd birthday. Hubby and I run on this logic: You are apart of this family and this house. We are not your servants and therefore you will contribute the welfare and well being of this household. The chores they are given are all age appropriate and we noticed our children take ownership in their work. Also helps things run smoothly!

3. I try and do a load (preferably two) of laundry daily. This keeps Mt. Washmore on the lower side and its easier to do one or two loads a day then doing two days straight of laundry from the last two weeks. If I find I don't have enough of one load (I try to run only full loads) then I strip a bed and wash that.

4. Meal planning while I with is one struggle with its always worth my time. When Hubby gets paid I look at our next two weeks figure out what meals need, review supplies on hand, and then shop. Total it probably takes me 3 hours but if I don't we spend WAY TOO much on eating out! Freezer meals and crock pots are my best friends in feeding my family.

5. We always try to have a family night Friday or Saturday.  It simple kids choice for game, movie, or Wii, make homemade pizza, and have fun. If for some reason we can't get those nights in, our kids miss it and often start talking about what we are going to do mid week.

This life is a blessing and what is long in days is short in years!

Cutting the Cord

With all that is happening in the world the hubby and I have really been taking a hard look at what influences are coming into our home. We really cant control the outside world but we can control what goes on in the home.

One of the first things I noticed was our local newspaper during the last round of elections. The paper published a lot of articles in favor of or endorsing topics we didn't agree with as a Catholic household. We also have readers (young readers) who would read articles and start asking questions. While I'm not one to shy away from discussions or explaining to my children why we believe and act, I didn't feel many of the topic presented in the paper weren't the way we wanted to introduce things to our children. So we cancelled the local paper. Before you think we live under a rock and totally not keeping up on current events, hubby and I keep up via news sites. As far as the young readers go,  they can read the Catholic paper that come once a month - that runs more in line with our beliefs.

The next was cable that came across my radar. We will table for a moment the bill that kept raising ever so slightly every month. Over Christmas break we were sitting on the sofa watching cartoons (on a channel that supposed to directed for children) it wasn't the show that we found upsetting but the commercials. We found ourselves pausing the tv so we could skip over the commercials and letting our children continue to watch their show. So after discussion (and more discussion) we decided cable probably wasn't the greatest influence in our home; and it was time to cut the cord. So good bye cable.

I should note this was a much easier decision for me than my hubby. I'm not a tv person - I have my two or three shows I love but it isn't the end of the world if I never see them again. However, my hubby really is a tv guy. He has a couple of shows he loves and is a huge movie lover. So we ended up more switching to Roku (streaming tv) but it removes commericals (yeah for kiddos watching) and I think we are more selective of what we are watching (instead of staying up to late watching reruns). Hubby also added Amazon Prime, which ended up being a nice addition and he enjoys the movies.

So is the household running smoothly with all negative cultural influences removed? Simply put no. Our evenings seem to run smoother since TV isn't the main focus and I'm not breaking up fights over who wants to watch what. The best part for me is I'm not missing the raising cable bill :)

This life is a blessing and what seems long in days is short in years!

Party of 6 and Counting....

What is Party of 6 and Counting??

Well its my life in a nutshell! I'm a Domestic Engineer (aka Stay at Home Mom) but I like my title better since its a more accurate description of what I do.  Executive chief, coordinator of sick leave, director of transportation, developer of education, strategic planner and coordinator, and cleanliness analyst pretty much sums it up. Even though the paycheck is small, the benefits are through a second party (aka the husband), the reward it great. Even though I may not see it or enjoy it on a day to day bases, this is truly what I was called to do.

A dozen is a good number but a half dozen will do pitch. So we are currently at a half dozen with four kids (A - 11, J - 8, K - 3, and M- 4 months) and our yellow lab Tyler. We are Catholic, so raising little Catholic babies is the goal and our parish is pretty much our second home.

And counting because I don't know God's plan - my "plan" was I wasn't going to get distracted by marriage and children. Have a amazing law career with a corner office. I got distracted by marriage, God sent babies, I have 1/2 of a Masters in Education, and I don't own a professional wardrobe.
I also seem to collect children so there is normally anywhere from 4 to 9 children running through this house.

This life is a blessing what may seem long in days is short in years!