Why I hate McDonald's (Oh, and I'm back)

It's a been a year. No way of getting around that fact. Clearly a lot has changed. I've been tossing around the idea of blogging again to maybe keep me more accountable. Then there's the fact that I feel guilty that I have virtually no record of our children's existence as and fear one day my children will be that adult that has seemingly no past but just magically appeared as adults one day.

Today is the day that did it. This afternoon needed recording if only for the ridiculousness of it all, if not for my paper trail of beatification. So without further adieu...

Why I hate McDonalds.

I picked Demand and Happy up from their Good Shepard class today at 11am. I had to drop one of their freinds off on the way home first and thought, "You know what, I should stop at McDonalds for lunch". I NEVER....NEVER stop at McDonalds. McDonalds creeps me out.  I thought, however, that if I picked up McDonalds my kitchen wouldn't be as messy and I would have a smoother afternoon. I was wrong.

Why McDonald's, you ask? Because Wendy's is on the other side of town and McDonald's is just down the street and it was well past lunch time for us. So we bring McDonald's home and eat. The kids eat everything. I only bought two kids meals because they usually don't eat everything but today they ate it all including half of my meal which I had no business getting in the first place. 

Next it was naptime. I have had cronic neck pain for nineteen days now most likely due to nursing but today was really bad because last night I was up half the night with the baby which is rare. So I desperately needed a nap and as we would be out late, it being Religious Ed night, I decided we should all nap.

Everyone headed to their prospective resting places.

We've been having problems with Happy, who is now almost four, staying in his bed for naps on the rare occasion we actually make him take a nap. So I threatened him with a time out until Mr. Sloth gets home if he gets out of bed. That was a mistake. I wasn't in bed more than three minutes when I hear him whimpering at the door that he had peed his pants. Not wanting to disturb an almost asleep baby I whispered to get changed and come back. Keep in mind it takes him at least ten minutes to dress on any given occasion. Next I had Demand at my door informing me that there was pee on the bathroom floor and she needed to use the restroom. Again, trying not to disturb baby I motioned to use my bathroom but be quiet and not flush the toilet. Twenty minutes later Demand is still in the bathroom and I open my door to now see Happy back the toilet. Pax is now screaming that he wants to get out of the room too. I reprimanded Pax for screaming and headed back to my room. By now, Demand is done going to the bathroom, Happy is not, but I head back to bed anyway. I didn't so much as lay down when the doorbell rang. That blessed doorbell!  Apparently packages can only be delivered to our home between the hours of 12:30pm-and 3pm. And if you aren't going to grace me with actually handing me the package just leave it on the doorstep, don't ring the doorbell. So now I have to go and answer the door because if I don't the kids will. As I walk out of my room I now find Demand on the kids bathroom toilet and Happy pant less next to her seemingly waiting to have it back when she is done. At this time I will remind you that there is still a puddle of urine on the floor. A problem I solve by merely throwing a towel over it for the time being.

Coming up the stairs, I find that the doorbell had in fact woke the baby, but Pax seems to be asleep now. So I grab a pillow and blanket and tell Happy to sleep in the hall when he is finished.  I then dash downstairs to search for baby's pacifier. As I frantically searched for it I notice how completely destroyed the kitchen is and wonder why did I bother going to McDonald's if not only my kitchen is a mess but my children's digestive tracks are a mess as well? I came upstairs empty handed of a pacifier but found the hall way and bathroom empty.  Happy had ignored my instructions and gone back into his room where I found him standing by Pax's crib! Good grief! Get into bed child!  I then head into my bedroom and close the door behind me. I climbed into bed with my sweet little bunk mate but find that I can't sleep after ten minutes of thinking what a great blog post this would be. I finally decide that baby is asleep enough for me to sneak out.  As I head downstairs I realize that the ten minutes I had to lay down actually made my neck more stiff and painful than if I had decided to not lay down at all.

I blame McDonald's.

Run Down

Wonder if I'll ever finish that Christmas post I started.


To serve as an excuse I will give you a run down of the past three weeks.

Week 1: Kids get fevers so we stay home all week and kids get cabin fever two days before Christmas.

Week 2: We have a lovely Jesse Tree Tea on Christmas Eve day. Next  day is Christmas full of presents, birthday cake, candy, cousins and plain ol' excitement. The next day some relatives come to stay for 48 hours, we spend much of those 48 hours at Grandmas house for some serious cousin time. Wednesday after Christmas we spend 12 hours out of the house. While we are supposed to drive 6 1/2 hours on Thursday I do no preparation due to my exhaustion. Thursday we wake up throw random stuff  the van and drive to Mena and Papas. The non-routine/spoiling continues for three days at Mena and Papas until we can take no more.

Instead of stopping at sister in laws on the way home we cut our losses and retreat for Christmas Detox.

Week 3: One of the better decisions I made while planning the holidays was NOT to do school this week. I had a feeling we would need a week to recuperate and that we sure did. Even though Demand has been curious as to when we'll do more school it's been nice to have some down time, regular naps and meals and time to get the house back in order. I mean, I just caught up with laundry today. Jeepers-Creepers! We did have swimming and Religious Ed this week but it's nice to gradually get back into the swing of things.

So the house is in order, meals are planned for the next week, and school is planned for next month. I've even started reading the book for this months book club two weeks earlier than I usually do,yay for me!

We are all excited to get back into the full swing of school again. We starting the next level of Math which I think might be second grade, but I'm not entirely sure. And we are starting "All About Spelling". I've only heard great things about this program. Since Demand is already reading I've heard this is a great next step. Speaking of reading Demand is enjoying "Book-it". Remember "Book-it"?? Well you can do it even if you homeschool. The "teacher" sets the goals and sends out the coupons a head of time for the free personal pan Pizza-Hut Pizzas.  I set the goal of Demand reading 10 books to get one coupon. Turns out, that is an easier goal to attain than I realized.  Demand has gotten to go twice. First off, it is HARD to find a sit down Pizza Hut these days! This last time we went the day after Christmas. The rest of us had Pizza Buffet and she got her personal pan. Next time I think we'll spend the day at the indoor pool at our gym and then head over for Pizza since they are fairly close to one another. Hows that for an inexpensive day of fun??

The next exciting news is that we are moving Happy into Pax' room. We knew it had to be done,and fairly soon but Pax is such a great sleeper we didn't want to ruin it. While at my parents we had no choice but to have all the kids sleep in the same room and by themselves. Something that's never been done before. For the first time in 6 years not on of our children screamed themselves to sleep at  my parents house. It was lovely!  Happy was  in an inflatable big boy bed he got for Christmas and was King of the World for all he knew. He was a little rambunctious at bedtime but Demand and Pax were tired and kept him in line. So it's very hopeful for a smooth transition. This will be stage one of the Great Happy Potty-Training Adventure.

I'll post Christmas pics when the children aren't eating chalk and harassing Mr. Sloth while he makes dinner. 

Check, check, check

My three little critters all have fevers today. Before you feel sorry for me, if you were going to anyway, just know that they just have fevers, nothing is coming out of them in any way shape or form. I've wiped no noses, I haven't to clean sheets, clothing, carpet, or couches due to "spilling" and diapers have been normal. So my day is actually going great! (You can still feel bad for the kids though being sick is no fun) Happy slept in until 9am and then he went straight to the couch for some sick TV time. I bought ice water and dry cereal downstairs for everyone and hardly heard a peep all morning while I cleaned the  main floor.  For lunch I made them smoothies which they devoured while cuddled on the couch. Then it was off to bed for naps. I do have to mention that Pax was actually pretty bored most of the morning. With siblings not reacting to antagonizing behavior, he headed upstairs to see if he could harass Momma....and he did. 

I got a great amount of work done though. Dishwasher unloaded and loaded, dishes cleaned, two loads of clothes washed, clutter put away and floors vacuumed. What's great about the children being ill is that they aren't making messes right behind me while I'm cleaning. Another upside to this family illness is that it's the week before Christmas. All events are cancelled this week and we'll most likely be done with this by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest so (hopefully) no on will be sick on Christmas.

I have a detailed checklist for the week to make Christmas preparations simple since we are having 25 people for dinner Christmas night. Today I made the cranberry sauce and I'll make some sweets later. If I have time and energy after dinner Mr. Sloth has offered to help me make 20 pounds of mashed potatoes. (I don't think we'll eat twenty pounds of potatoes on Christmas but might as well make them since you can freeze them.) Last night Mr. Sloth and I got some wrapping done. He doesn't usually do the wrapping but he did manage to wrap two gifts, it took him 45 minutes but he did it! 

If I stick to my list and get the few things I have planned for each day done,  then we should actually have a pretty easy Christmas day. Christmas Eve dinner is already in the freezer. We're having pork pie (trust me it's way better than it sounds or looks) with salad and bread. And remember we are having our Jesse Tree "Tea" for lunch on Christmas Eve. Christmas day breakfast will be bagels with cream cheese and fruit. We'll snack most of the day in anticipation for a big dinner. If I do might job right on Saturday we should have deviled eggs to snack on Christmas day, yummy!

Advent

I thought I would fill you in on all the excitement of Advent in the Sloth home. First of all, even though this is the longest Advent it sure flew by for us, only one week left and so much to do. We bought our last real Christmas tree for a while the Second week of Advent. We plan to purchase an artificial tree (and a number of other Christmas decorations at the end of the season when everything is on super clearance. We usually decorate our tree purple until Gaudette Sunday, but my brothers family was going to be in town that weekend and I didn't forsee redecorating the tree in our plans. So I just decorated it right away. This year I wanted to do a gold/silver/white theme. I love how it turned out and the best part is, Pax hasn't touched it once, can you believe it? Just not like him. Mr. Sloth got into the spirit this year as well. He went out and bought three wreaths for outside our garage, one for our door, and a beautiful planter for our front stoop. Then he out did himself when we decorated our banister. In his words, with him, you either get the Grinch or Martha Stewart. Welcome Martha!



The few months I spent putting our new Jesse Tree together paid off. (I suspect that Mr. Sloth had his doubts it was worth the time and effort). It was a lot of cutting and gluing but it's done and we have a tree for years now. We've been pretty good at doing it everyday, although we switched from doing it at night during Rosary time to doing it during the day. For one, some nights just getting a decade of the Rosary in is hard enough let alone a Bible reading and fighting over who's turn it is to put the ornament on the tree. Secondly I moved the tree from our dining room to the homeschool room. Since we don't have a dining room table and that room is in it's own corner of the house we never walk through the room, but we walk through the homeschool room all day. I started reading the suggested corresponding Bible passages but it was getting a bit long for 5, 2, and 1 year olds. As it turns out, I read the fine print and we actually had the Children's Picture Bible that they suggested using. All the right stories are in there and they are pretty short and have a picture which the kids love.



Another thing I wanted to do with the Jesse Tree is to have a "Jesse Tree Tea" this year. It seemed like a lot of work so I tried to convince some friends to do it with me but no one seemed interested. With time running out I was starting to think it wouldn't happen this year but then it dawned on me we have no plans on Christmas Eve so we could do the Tea as a brunch that day and it would help celebrate the day and the end of the Jesse Tree as well keep the little from bursting at the seams. After going over the blogs that more than inspired the idea I realized that not every symbol is represented, just use what you can. That I can do. So here's my list.  

Adam- Apples with gummi worms for serpents
Noah- Animal crackers with deviled eggs for arks and rainbow goldfish for the rainbow
Abraham-....we'll see what I can find at the store,probably something "star" Isaac- bundle of pretzel sticks Jacob- ladder made of pretzel sticks
Joseph- colorful sprinkles in the shape of a coat on peanut butter bread
Burning bush-broccoli with cheese sauce on top
Moses-Milano cookies (and if time, with chocolate Roman Numerals..
Jonah-....if I can find whales
Root of Jesse-carrots
Davids Star- Star shaped cheese sandwiches
Bethlehem- "house of bread' loaf of bread...and we still get a free one from Panera this month how perfect. John the Baptist- honey which they can put on whatever or just eat
Angel-??
Mary- White flowers for the center of the table.

So it's really not so bad, and actually very little prep work. Our kids wont' drink tea or cider so we'll probably just have some sparkling juice as a treat. I'm sure you've guessed that those aren't our only plans for the week. We're not doing any school this week and most activities are cancelled so we should have enough time to get everything ready. Demand has been sick so we still have Christmas treats to make. If Mr. Sloth remembers to bring the gifts back from his office I have gifts to wrap. Demands Little Flowers group made fleece blankets for babies in need so ideally we'll be heading to our favorite LifeCare Center to drop off the blanket and some no longer needed baby stuff and maternity clothes. Demand and I haven't been back there to volunteer since Happy was born so it will be nice to get back there. We were planning on getting the last of our shopping done yesterday but with Demand sick we were forced to stay home all day. I'm sure a few trips to the store our in our future this week.

Here are the plans for Christmas day. First off,gifts. We wanted to keep it simple this year and not only cut back on the amount of gifts but only buy quality gifts that our kids will love not junk that I'll want to throw out in a month. The only toy that has batteries or makes sounds are the walkie talkies that I can't seem to find at the price I want so we'll see if those happen. I also tried to be more creative in the gifts we gave, not everything is a toy. I made a photo album for Happy of just pictures of him and I'm framing some pictures of Demand and her friends for her bedroom. Each of the kid is getting a pillow pet which they've been talking about for years....well not Pax, but he's still getting one. Demand is getting a pretty canopy for over her bed that I got for a dollar at a garage sale this summer as well as a pair of ice skates that I also bought at a garage sale for $5 brand new and in the box. Speaking of garage sale, for $5 I bought a giant tote full of boys action toys. Pirate ships, dinosaurs, soldiers, canons, things that shoot other things. It's insane! So the boys are both getting that toy. I'll just have a bunch of it out and set up Christmas morning. The kids are also getting felt boards (super clearance at Michael's this summer) and Happy is getting an inflatable bed for Traveling. Demand has had one for years and we love it! Pax was a little tricky as we have every baby toy we could want and quite honestly I don't want all we do have. So he's getting a pillow pet and the action figures as mentioned, as well as more wooden train tracks for Ikea train set and Wedgits. Wedgits are AWESOME!

I love the idea of getting the kids three gifts just as Jesus received from the Magi and once you add in the gifts from Mom and Dad, grandparents, godparents and eachother, it really adds up.

Speaking of gifts for each other, yes I'm going to keep writing. Here's the run down.

Demand: She bought Happy the "Nemo" book for the Tag pen (one of or favorite toys) and bought Pax a set of foam building blocks.

Happy: He bought Demand "Plum Pudding" for her Strawberry Shortcake collection which she has been wanting, and Pax a container of Dinosaurs.
Pax: He bought Happy a little "Mater" to go with his Lightening McQueen and Demand a four pack of "Hello, Kitty" puzzles which she already found under our bed, although she only thinks there are two puzzles. But she did want to make sure I didn't forget to wrap the puzzles and even requested the red sparkly wrapping paper.

Stocking stuffers. I thought long and hard about creative ideas that didn't involve stuffing the stockings full of candy and junk toys. We decided to give each of the kids their own pint of blueberries. They will love them!! And I don't care if they sit there and eat the whole container on Christmas morning. I'm also giving the older kids their own bottle of vitamins. They usually share a Trader Joe variety but I thought it would be a treat to have their own character bottles (Lighting McQueen and Tinker Bell). Each kid is also getting their own little rolling pin as I'm sick of them fighting over the one we have. And if I find them, Demand will be getting sticker earings. I will be giving them candy, don't fret, but I will give them an amount that I don't care if they eat it all in one day. Candy tends to stick around forever in this house. So that's our Advent rundown, I'll save the part where I have 25 people for dinner on Christmas night for my next post.

Another lovely aspect of this most wonderful home is that we finally have a proper place to hang our Christmas stockings. We really didn't have a places in our old home so we just taped them to the wall somewhere. All the stockings were made by "Mena" my mother except for Mr.Sloths. His was $1 clearance at Walmart and that's just the way he likes it. Mine of course was made.....a while ago, and Mena works on the stockings before each childs first Christmas. And, Mena, if you are reading. Happy cannot stop talking about his train stocking and how much he loves it.    ....Till next time!

Part Deux

Following up with my....follow up I left you at Halloween. Here are some pictures.

Buzzlightyear of course. I bought this for $5 at a garage sale this year (The only costume I bought)and thought it was perfect. Little did I know that he had his heart set on being a bat. I had no idea he even knew what Halloween was, but apparently he had plans. I actually panicked when he refused to try on his costume in the morning and I'm embarassed to say I tried to find a bat costume before I came to my senses and thought, "He's 2! He'll wear what I tell him to wear." And then I bribed him with candy. After that he Loved the costume. He even got a blinking clip on light which looked like a laser pretty cool!

And here is Pax. He is the third child to be an Elephant. Those old navy costumes are the best! Cute as a button and that kid loves costumes so he's really fun to watch.

Here are the kids trick-or-treating. Our new neighborhood is full of kids, it was so much fun that night to see a sea of children and parents out trick-or-treating. We went with two other families and our neighbors so our group along was about fifteen-people. The kids got so much candy they were dragging their bags but the end of an hour.

And here is Miss Demand. So I was actually willing to drop an embarassing amount of money to buy her a St. Therese costume but she informed me that she would make her own. I had my doubts but it turned out pretty cool. She wanted to be a ballerina-princess. I added the jacket and we decided that she was a Rockstar-ballerina-princess. (She has an obsession with rockstars)

And here is Pax in his after hours costume. It's acutallly just regular clothes but like I said he likes costumes so he leaves the hood up and looks like a little monster.
Ok, I need to go, a certain 2 year old is throwing a fit because I won't put batteries in a princess wand.

Catch Up

I've decided to come back. Sometime next week I'll explain why I left for a while. In the meantime I'll try and catch you up on life in the Whine Cellar.


At the beginning of September we went to the State Fair. Here are some pictures of that fun day. First one, Happy was collecting corn for the "Helping Hands" Farm exhibit for kids. They get to pretend to farmers. Next we got to meet Super Why! Don't we look excited? Worth the half hour wait in line? Next picture is all the kiddos in their strollers. Yep, it was actually cold when we go there that morning. And the last picture a nice family took their baby goat out to show us and we got to feed and pet the goat.







Then on Sept.12th, Pax celebrated his first birthday with a Jungle Party!


In his new (bought at garage sale) coupe.

First juice box. Isn't he just adorable???

His Jungle Cake.

His own personal lion cake.



Happily playing with some of his new toys. He's a very easy to please kinda kid, he's Pax!



Bloggers is having some issues now so stay tuned for more updates and pictures.....

A Run Down

Last night I had a Norwex party which was the excitement of the day around here. I made the wise choice to resist cleaning all day and just wait until 6pm, when Mr. Sloth removed the children from the house to clean. The party turned out great and only lasted until 9:30pm.

Today is double coupon day and I was busy, busy, busy. Mr. Sloth's mother came over at 10:30am to babysit so I had three hours to get all my errands done which included couponing which can sometimes take a while.

First thing I did was jump in the shower. Even though I was up at 5:30am I chose to work on coupons rather than shower this morning since I was busy last night. Next I ran a Norwex catalog over to a friend who couldn't make the party. Then Mr. Sloth and I met for lunch at a new Mexican restaurant. (So yummy!) Then it was off to our parish to a visit to all of the offices there, first the Church office, then the Rel Ed office to pick up our books. (Mr. Sloth and I are teaching together this year, should be interesting....) then to the school office to pick up a Good Shepard form.

It was 12:30pm by the time I left our parish. I had one hour to get the grocery store, coupon, and get home to relieve my mother-in-law and get super tired babies down for a late nap. Thankfully I didn't have much on my list and was thinking there weren't that many great deals this week but now that I look at it, it was a great week! There were a lot of good deals on meat so I stocked up. As far as coupons went I got four items for free, onions, carrots, potatoes were a part of a meal deal if I bought a roast, and then I had a coupon for a free yogurt. By far though my best deal was diapers.

Huggies slip-on diapers were 10.48, I bought three.

I had three $3.00 off coupons

That brought my total down to $7.48 a piece

Plus I had three $2 off your next shopping trip coupons.

That brought my price down to $5. 48 a piece

but wait, there's more.

The deal was buy Huggies slip-on diapers and get a coupon for $5 off your next grocery trip. So I paid......do the math.....$0.48 A PACK!!!! Whoopie!!! What a rush!

I ended up paying more out of pocket than planned. $87 but cheese was on sale for $1.98 so I HAD to stock up since we blow through cheese around here.

Tonight is mom's night out and Mr. Sloth is taking the kids to the gym at 6pm so I will have a little time to swing by Walgreens and do some couponing. I have $12 in Walgreens money that I have to use before Friday. Not sure what I am going to get yet.

Tomorrow is a big day. For our anniversary Mr. Sloth and I gave eachother the gift of a personal trainer. Tomorrow is my first day. I think we're meeting a total of four times. Exciting, yet scary. I'll let you know how it goes.

This lady needs a nap. Toodles.