Hmmm, everything was quiet upstairs, too. Maybe I’ll just peek in her bedroom door, I thought. She was in there all alone and smiling at me so I went in to see her. Mmmmm, I love curling up with Mommy.

All week she’s been up super-early and has already had her walk with Daddy and shower before Daddy gets me and the other kids up to go read at 7:00. I hate getting up early. I’m still sleepy and then everyone gets mad at me for crying when I don’t get to sit on Daddy’s lap. Well, I get to sit on Mommy’s lap and that’s almost as nice.

Not today though! Today is Friday and we’re all sleeping in, except for Daddy who isn’t here so must be off at work already. Haha. More Mommy for me. We curled up for half an hour, all lazy-like and then Georgie found me and made me breakfast while Mommy took a shower.

After breakfast the other kids all went downstairs, but not me! I went in to go watch Mommy put on her make-up. Hehe. She wasn’t watching me though. I sneaked into her room and stole some more of her Altoids. Yummy!! I got in trouble yesterday for doing that. Also the day before. Plus the day before that and Monday. But they’re so yummy.

I went back to Mommy before she even got suspicious, but Grandma was in there talking to Mommy. I love Grandma! She picked me and put me on her lap and gave me kisses. Then she told Mommy that I had been in the Altoids again. How did she know? I was sneaky! Mommy glared at me but that was it. Does that mean I can have them?

Grandma put me back down and Mommy started doing her hair. Mommy has lots of hair. I hate it when she picks me up and her hair is on her shoulder right where I want to put my head. I point at it and Mommy moves it for me. I thought maybe I’d go see what was going on in the kitchen. Interesting things are always in there.

Still no brothers or sisters back up from downstairs yet. Darn! I moved a chair over to the counter so I could see what was up there. Hmmm, the coffee cup Mommy brought home yesterday from shopping was sitting right there. Yummy! I love coffee, but Mommy always says I can’t have it. I don’t know why. It tastes great!

Uh oh. Grandma came in looking for me. It’s like she knew I was doing something I shouldn’t be doing. Oh no! She took me back to Mommy and told her I was drinking her coffee. How does Grandma know everyhing??

Next was time for a diaper change and getting dressed. Mommy did it today. Usually Georgie does it. He gets really annoyed when he doesn’t get to do it, but I like it much better when Mommy does it. She’s not so rough. I get to wear my new clothes today. Plus she actually put on my shoes. I loooove shoes!

Grandma came in and we looked at some pictures on her camera. Some were of Brown Bear and me. Some were of my sisters and Georgie. Mommy went to go make herself some breakfast. Smells yummy. When she brought it over to the table, her plate had sausage and biscuits and eggs and gravy. Oooh, I really wanted some. I asked her for a bite, Kyra asked her for a bite, Faithy asked her for a bite, and Anika asked her for a bite. She told us all no and said to shoo. I don’t get it. I thought we were supposed to share.

The big kids were busy doing their Math and Mommy was helping them. Faith was playing a really fun game with some puzzles. I wanted to help, but when I moved the pieces Faith started yelling at me. Then Mommy yelled at me. I went to the school shelf and started looking at the books. Then I thought I’d just check to see what was in the black filing cabinet. Apparently, I’m not supposed to mess with that either.

I thought about going to find some more of Mommy’s Altoids, but when I went to go look they weren’t where I left them and I couldn’t efind them anywhere. So instead I just wandered around her bedroom until I found the phone. It doesn’t look like the other ones at home. It has a cord thing and you can’t walk away with in and put it behind the couch. I tried but it would only go as far as the end of the bed.

After awhile Mommy went downstairs to do something on her computer for a bit. Some of the other kids were upstairs and some were downstairs with her, but I looked through the window by the front door and saw some really interesting people across the street. I thought I’d just go see what they were doing so I headed on out.

I only made it about three steps before Georgie caught me. He’s really big! He was not happy. Then Mommy showed up and she was even more unhappy. Going outside without someone else, it turns out, is a really bad idea. Mommy and I had a little trip down the hall. When she got to her bedroom, she found the phone.

Now we’re back downstairs and I’m sitting right beside her on the couch. It’s kind of nice curling up with her, but I’m starting to get bored. I wonder what’s in the kitchen.

Henry

With small children, diapering is a big monotony particularly when the child you diaper doesn’t enjoy that activity and takes every opportunity to cry at you every time you plop him down on the bed for a change. This has been Henry’s reaction for 90% the changes I have given him since he was two weeks old. You can add that up yourself if you’re so inclined. Having someone yell at you several times a day for trying to clean the poop off their own butt gets a mite discouraging.

Even more depressing than the actual work itself is the feeling of being useless. I used to have a very sharp, curious mind. Every class I attended, I did well in. In every company with which I was employed, I did very well and was often promoted quickly. I loved getting report cards and performance reviews because someone always saw my hard work and rewarded it with whatever was appropriate.

Motherhood isn’t that way. Many days I feel like my lovely brain that I was so fond of has been spackled over with peanut butter. The manual labor that I do requires no talent or training, which makes me interchangeable with anyone else around who can throw dirty clothes in a washer with equivalent competency. Because this labor is so menial, why would anyone bother complimenting it or even noticing it? Congratulations Mom, you have just swished your toilet for the 1000th time. We are throwing you a ticker tape parade and sending you to Disney World! Somehow you don’t see that in the newspaper too much. This is probably part of why I like website building so much. It gives my mind something to do which keeps it sharp(er) and other people see the finished product and say “wow.”

The other day when I was driving home Dr. Laura came on the radio, and she read an excerpt from a book called The Invisible Woman. I am not going to retell the entire excerpt because you can go read it yourself here, but the very short version is that Wifing (not to be confused with wi-fi) and Mothering is much like Cathedral building.

The great European cathedrals took decades or more to make and many times the craftsmen worked their whole lives knowing they would never see the finished work. Their names aren’t stamped on the building; no one knows who they were. What they saw was the beauty that their work would become. Their joy was the delight in doing hard work unto the Lord and knowing that He sees it and values it even when no one else does either of those.

I like that. Some days when I’m cleaning up the milk spilled on the floor after cleaning up the juice that was spilled eight minutes ago, I have a hard time remembering that my work is important. This is why I’m writing it down. So if any of you ask me what I did this week, instead of getting a dissatisfied look and a “changed diapers” response, I think I’m going to start answering that this week I was Cathedral building. Then you can have the blank look and hopefully I will more readily remember that building little temples for the Holy Spirit is what I’m doing as opposed to, say, neverending janitorial work.

Rachel

“No Georgie, I do not know how to make an electromagnet.”

That was the result of his reading this:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and to your 3 year old…

“No Faithy, you may not get a tatoo!”

in response to her post-communion wine proclamation on Sunday: “I want a tatoo!” Maybe that’s why many churches forgo the Biblical wine part of communion wine in favor of grape juice. Just what I always wanted ~ my three year old guzzling communion wine and requesting tatoos in the middle of church service.

Rachel

Everything on this list is free except for aWeber, which has a monthly fee dependent on the package you sign up for. I think mine is $15 or $20 a month and I use it all the time.

WORDPRESS BLOG UPGRADE:

1. Automatic Upgrade Plugin ~ The newest version of WP comes with a built in automatic upgrader, but if you are running an older version, this plugin makes upgrading a snap (takes maybe twenty seconds).
2. WordPress Themes for giving your blog a makeover.
3. Plugins I use:
   • Akismet for trapping all those spam comments
   • Add sig automatically adds your customized signature to every post. Works for multi-author blogs.

   • Category Posts for adding a Favorite Posts list

   • FeedSmith is for running your blog through FeedBurner, which is blog stats and stuff

   • Google Analyticator for Google site stats

   • SnapShots adds those neat popup things to outside links that give a preview of the site the link goes to.

4. Publicity:

   • aWeber.com for emailing your posts to an email subscriber list (make sure you put a web form box at the top of your sidebar menu. If you have two menus, put it at the top of the left one)

   • hootsuite.com for automatically posting links to your blog post titles to your Twitter account (also has good Twitter blog stats and pays you for adding an ad bar to the top of your links)

   • twitter.com/widgets Twitter widgets for posting your Twitter updates back to your blog sidebar.

   • Facebook badge for your blog sidebar

   • Import your blog posts to your Facebook wall as notes: http://screencast.com/t/9UKFu0uNu2f. I can never remember how to do this, so I just made a short vid to show you (it’s in a really not-so-obvious place so this seemed easier).

   • Add your blog to Facebook Networked blogs to get it on your FB sidebar

   • FeedBurner.com for thorough tracking of all your blog stats and where they are coming from (even the ones that get read through aWeber emails) and lots of other neat features (like an email signature scrolling headline to put in your siggies.
5. Browser addons for posting automation and organization (these are all for Firefox. I don’t know what they have for IE so don’t ask.):
   
   • Scribefire for Firefox lets you post to all your blogs (and edit, delete, add categories, upload pictures, etc.) from one popup bar at the bottom of your screen. I never, ever go to my actual blog admin panels to post. Ever. It’s what I used for this post.
   • TwitterFox lets me post to all of my Twitter accounts from a little popup dealy.
   • Facebook Toolbar for Firefox lets me post status updates from my browser bar and see all my friends’ updates without ever going to the FB site.

Okay, well I think that’s my big list. Now I see why it’s been averaging me about five hours per blog to do a complete revamp. Having all this in a nice list will probably make it much easier and faster. Of course, now that I’m done with all of mine, I don’t need it! Maybe it will help some of you guys.

Rachel

Usually I buy the kids clothes for the following year at the end of the previous season because it’s much cheaper (so in January when winter stuff is on clearance, I buy it all up for them to wear the upcoming fall).

Last year we were uber-broke and I didn’t do it, which made last fall when the economy worsened and took our finances with it really unpleasant.Vowing to never make that mistake again no matter how broke we are, I have been consistently swiping a little bit of each paycheck for the kids’ clothes and filling in their boxes a bit at a time. $5 sweaters and $6 pants from Old Navy, $4 shirts and $8 pants and dresses from Gymboree have been pretty consistent price points.

Which brings us to today. Our brilliant government has decided that
everything that can be sold to or for children under age 12 has to be tested for lead and that the law is retroactive so if stores have stuff that was in production prior to the law that wasn’t tested, they can’t sell it. The law goes into effect February 10th. Baaaaad for businesses; today, good for me (after the 10th, not so good).

Gymboree, my favorite kids’ clothes store, has their semi-annual sale going on and their markdowns have been good. Yesterday though, they marked down about a gazillion things to $1.99 at both their retail store and their outlet stores.

Many of the marked down items have rhinestones on them, leading to speculation that these items were would be problematic under the new law. Other rumors are that the economy has made Gymboree’s earnings post badly and they need to unload as much as possible before the end of their fiscal year.

In the seven years I have been buying Gymboree for my kids, I have never seen them mark down this much. After calling the local stores to get a sense of what their inventory was like, I headed out to the Clackamas Town Center store, which didn’t have a whole lot at $1.99 but a few things, and then on to the Troutdale outlet which had tons. What did I get?

1 dress
4 sweaters
8 pairs jeans
15 shirts

Regular retail price: $568. My price? $56. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!! I am the hunter back from the successful kill. Bwahahahaahhaaha! And here’s a picture of me with my plunder:

Every single thing on the floor there cost $1.99 (except for me). There are duplicates in different sizes in there, of course, which is not a big deal because I have a bunch of girls who will match and they like that. Plus, baby shower gifts! Yay!

Okay, so maybe the story wasn’t short. Ha! I actually condensed down 2/3 of what I originally had written so it is short. Well shorter. Okay, off to go pack all that stuff into the kids’ under-bed boxes for next year. Heehee! Yay!!

Rachel

P.S.
Gymboree will continue offering these items at this price point until
they are all gone so you might want to call around and see who has the most stock left. Generally lower traffic stores have better sale
inventory. The Salem store is pretty quiet and often has good clearance stuff, and the Troutdale outlet seems to have more clearance than the Woodburn one.

I’d also call the Vancouver store and maybe Pioneer Place and the new Bridgeport store. Clackamas is usually kind of medium and Tigard is almost always totally cleared out. Don’t know about the Lloyd Center one (I never go there).Good luck!

I headed upstairs to go monkey around for half an hour before dinner prep needed to begin and they played together nicely downstairs. I barely heard a peep out of them! When I came back down I found a bowl with hot pink goo that had been almost entirely scraped out of it.

Me: Umm, what is this?

Georgie:  We made pudding.

Me: Pudding?

I looked around. Nothing on the stove or in the sink would indicate cooking pudding.

Me: That doesn’t look like pudding. That looks like frosting.

Trinity: No, see here’s the recipe.

Me: Umm yes, that says “icing.” Frosting is icing. You made a bowl of frosting. What did you guys put the frosting on?

Georgie: Plates. We had a tea party.

Me: Well yes, but what food did you eat off the plates?

Georgie: Frosting.

Me: What? So you just put a blob of frosting on a plate and ate it off with your fingers?

Georgie (looking completely horrified): No, Mom. Do you think we’re completely uncivilized? We used forks!

Now don’t tell me my children aren’t civilized! I’m fairly sure that my ten year old son was the instigator of a tea party consisting entirely of pink frosting for the meal. I’m really glad we put him in basketball this year.

Rachel

Saturday morning my son greeted me with a smile and a piece of paper that he had “forgotten” to give me on Friday which explained how he and the girls (older two) were planning to stay up all night eating candy on Reformation Day 2008 (as opposed any other visiting ones that might not be in 2008 I guess). Apparently he and Trinity had actually done this. Anika, being somewhat wiser, did not eat candy all night and instead spent her wee hours actually sleeping.

Yes, I would have preferred to have received this information on Friday; but alas, by Saturday our only options were let them run around like maniacs on horrific sugar highs all day or lull them into a stupor by letting them watch TV all day and hoping they got tummyaches (such good parenting). By the time you have six children, the answer to any question is “whichever one makes less noise.” We opted for the latter choice.

George told them in the morning that they should quit eating candy, which of course they declined to do. Normally we would have straightened that out, but eating disgusting amounts of candy at once tends to be a self-correcting problem and this way hopefully they would remember the lesson next year.

By Sunday morning Trinity was complaining that her stomach hurt. Off and on all morning she didn’t feel well and by the time we got to church she was starting to cry in that “I’m going to throw up within five seconds” kind of way. George grabbed the closest thing he could for her to barf into, which turned out to be….. the box of remaining candy Georgie was bringing over to his friend’s house. I’m just glad it wasn’t my purse.

So Trinity will probably not make this mistake next year. Somehow I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this from Georgie though. Maybe he’ll be like my brother who once ate twelve roasted marshmallows in a row and promptly returned them on the other side of our grandparents’ Winnebago. He didn’t eat marshmallows again for years. Actually, I’m not sure he eats them now. Hehe.

Hope you had a lovely Halloween that did not involve unidentifiable stomach contents hurling your way!

Rachel

Since no fiiiiiine looking men were around other than her Dad and brothers, she’s all of eight, and this is not a common vocabulary word at our house for people who are under twenty and have not just smashed their thumb with a hammer, I thought I’d just double check to see if I heard correctly.

Me: Trinity, what did you just say?

Trintity: Oh, was that a bad word? I wasn’t sure.

Me: Yes, please delete that from your vocabulary. Do you hear me or Dad saying that?

Trinity: No. {pause…. pause…. pause….} Mom, is “fish paste” a bad word?

Fish paste? Fish paste??? Well, technically she does have a point. Her Dad and I don’t usually say that either, so if you’re a kid I suppose you could make a case that it does fall under the test for swear words. Fish paste! As usual, we have SpongeBob to thank for that.

Actually, all of my favorite expletives come from SpongeBob, and usually I hear them first from Trinity using them in normal conversation. “Oh Barnacles! I can’t find my other shoe!” or “Faithy ate my sucker. Tartar sauce!” Last week I was in the room when the kids were watching that goofy show. I looked up just in time to hear SpongeBob exclaim “Holy Shrimp!” in regards to something or other. Hmm, come to think of it, I wouldn’t really like to hear that coming out of my kids’ mouths; but I thought it was pretty funny. Barnacles!

In other news, my children have discovered a new obsession. Since it doesn’t involve inane television shows, destroying property, making enormous messes, my having to drive them all over creation, or anything expensive, naturally I’m delighted!

Our friend was selling an air soft gun and some ammo at her garage sale this weekend, and the kids wanted to buy it but didn’t have the $10 they needed to do so. So they decided to hold a little fundraiser of their own.

After hiding out in their rooms all morning with a “Keep Out” sign posted on the door, they emerged with their new creation: a box that they had cut to open up into a display case for all the bead necklaced, bracelets, and rings that they had spent the morning stringing. These, they announced, they were going to sell to passersby from a card table in the driveway.

Remembering my own lemonade stand days which involved lots of sitting in the hot sun making no money, I was skeptical. However, they had clearly spent considerable effort on this endeavor and I try not to discourage them from things that would keep them occupied outside for awhile.

Ten minutes later, they had made three dollars! Some guy had bought three bracelets for his three daughters. By the end of the 45 minutes they were out there, they had made six bucks. I was shocked! Now they’re hooked and have been going out every day to do this. They bought the air soft gun (the pellets had sold), and are now saving up “just because.”

Since this year we are doing school in the afternoon instead of morning (which I like wayyyyy better), they have been doing all their homework and chores in the morning diligently and quickly without being reminded so that they can run back out and sell some more. They’ve already figured out what their best sellers are (bracelets), had to change materials a little bit to make them fit better, and figured out that if they post signs on either end of the street or stand out there with a sign they get more customers.

Guess I’m going to have to get them going on alternate selling venues. What a bunch of goofballs!

Rachel

Skyler and Georgie are six weeks apart and Anika and Olivia were born three months apart. Plus, David and Erica adopted a new little guy, Silas, from Ethiopia in February and this is the first time we’ve met him (if you missed this at the beginning of the year, go back and check the January/February archives). He’s three and a half, and wow is he a cutie!

George said the first thing Silas said to him was, “Hey there, Buddy!” with a big smile on his face. He spoke no English when he got here and now it’s perfect. Well, as perfect as three year old English ever is. He’s so completely charming that you just love him right away. Yep, new nephew. Pretty darn cute!

So the wedding was Saturday and Sunday we went over to one of George’s other brother’s place for one last family get together before David and Erica had to go back home. We had so much fun that we didn’t get home until 11:30. George signed up several months ago to go be a slave driver counselor at our church’s Future Men’s Camp from Monday morning until Wednesday night, so he got home and packed real quick before collapsing into bed. Then he was up at church by 8:45 the next morning to head out to camp.

I don’t sleep too well while he’s gone, but other than that all machinery seems to be functioning normally. The kids cleaned up with me Monday morning and then spent the rest of the day recuperating (i.e. “vegging in front of the idiot box”) and taking naps. I told the big kids they all had to take naps too and not only did they not complain, but they looked rather relieved and all of them slept.

Since George was gone, I decided to make my favorite foods that he hates so I don’t make when he’s here. This involves breakfast for dinner, also known as HURRAY FOR FRENCH TOAST, which was Monday’s dinner, and pasta alfredo with a bunch of chicken and veggies in it with some Artisan bread on Tuesday. Both of these seemed to go over well with the children. Hehe. Anika thinks that French toast would be a good dinner to have every night.

Masha was over for cards Monday night and then dropped some stuff off and hung around for dinner and the evening on Tuesday. My Mom watched the kids while I ran errands on Tuesday and my Dad came over Tuesday night. I conquered Mount Laundry. Enough has been going on that the time has gone by fast. I’m glad George gets home tomorrow.

Oh! I almost gave my poor Hubby a heart attack last week, I think. We’re switching insurance companies and the new one wanted me to go to the doctor for a pregnancy test and then send them a copy of the results so they know for sure that I’m not pregnant. Hello! I’m five months post-partem and nursing full time. Not exactly high risk here. Now if it were two weeks after I had quit nursing, then yes that could possibly be considered the danger zone.

Anyway, last week we sat down to dinner and started discussing our day. I started with, “Well, I have to go take a pregnancy test next week.” This was perhaps not the best phrasing. George bellows, “WHAT!!! Not again! You can’t be pregnant!” Immediately I start backtracking and telling him that it’s for the insurance. He told me that would be grounds for divorce and glared at me for about ten minutes after that. In case you somehow lost track, we now have six kids. Our house is very loud,
everything we own is stained or broken within ten minutes of arriving
on the premises, and 1998 was the last time we talked to each other without it sounding like
this:

Me: HI HONEY, HOW ARE YOU? {we have to yell to hear each
other over the din}. Georgie stop telling your sister that the bee
is on the inside of the window instead of outside.

George: I’M TIRED. HOW WAS YOUR DAY? Kyra, why are you crying?
You smooshed your toe jumping off the couch? Hey. Anika? ANIKA! STOP
JUMPING OFF THE COUCH! What Kyra? Oh yeah, I forgot to kiss you. Sorry.
There. All better.

Me: BUSY. ARE YOU HUNGRY? What Faithy? You have to go potty? Well, come on let’s go.

George: YES. WHAT’S FOR DINNER?

Me: DO YOU SEE A CLEAN SHIRT IN THE LAUNDRY PILE ON THE COUCH FOR FAITH? IT LOOKS LIKE SHE DUMPED MILK ALL OVER THIS ONE. Hey!! Faithy, that is wayyyy too much toilet paper.

George: I DON’T KNOW WHICH SHIRTS ARE HERS. THEY ALL LOOK THE
SAME. WHAT SIZE IS SHE? No Georgie, you can’t play Guitar Hero. Is your
room clean?

Me: I’LL GET IT. Trinity, is that Henry crying upstairs?
George: Hi, Honey. How are you?

Me: I’m tired. Are you hungry?

The weird thing is the kids are all pretty well-behaved kids. They’re just all under ten and outnumber us three to one.

We called Henry “Oops Shubin” for the first several months he was in utero, and when I told George I was pregnant that time, his response was “Oh NO! Not again!” Actually, that was more or less my response as well. We should probably do something about that soon…. At least Henry is a big sweetie-pie now, and he thinks George is pretty hot stuff, which none of the other kids did until they were a year old. At that point they all decided I was completely passe and George was SuperDad. At least I get to be WonderMommy for awhile.

Rachel

12 giant flytraps
11 hobo spiders
10 boxes of lice
9 pterodactyls
8 rising mummies
7 T Rexes
6 hungry zombies
5-headed dragons
4 spraying skunks
3 thorny devils
2 stinging scorpions
1 velociraptor

So that’s festive, right? I particularly like the use of appropriate adjectives like “rising” mummies (for when the regular mummies just won’t do). Now, I realize this looks suspiciously like something that Georgie would come up with alone, but I’m fairly sure that the girls were back there envisioning this monstrosity right along with him. I mean really. Is this what you want for Christmas??

Venus Fly Trap, although I think they may have been envisioning something more like Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors.

Hobo Spider, which is our very large, local, nasty, poisonous one.

Lice, which I’m sure we all know enough about to detest.

Pterodactyl, which I always thought of as rather charming dinosaurs until I saw Jurassic Park III.

Rising Mummy = never good. This is me (or my body double) being threatened by a rising mummy:

Happily, this guy should be coming along any moment to rescue me.

I wonder how good Brendan Fraser does against these:

Zombies ~ ugly yes, but they move soooo slow. Oh no, what could be fast enough to escape them?? Stilts? Pogo sticks? Tricycles??

Five-headed dragon, which will be represented today by a drawing of a Hydra. Georgie will like that.

Skunk buns. Just what I always wanted for Christmas!

Thorny Devil. Call me crazy, but I think these guys are kind of cute. They certainly beat out skunk butt and zombie woman.

Stinging scorpions. Nope, not cute!

Velociraptor: cute until they slice you open with their giant middle claw and eat your guts while you’re still alive. And thank you, Steven Spielberg, for delivering that very important information to little rabid dinosaur-loving boys everywhere.

I better not get any of these things for Christmas. Of course, when I was a teenager my brother gave me a piece of moldy bread he had been growing in a jar in his closet for three months specifically for the occasion (he partitioned the box and put the actual gift in the other side). I don’t know that spraying skunk could smell much worse than that.

Rachel