Our Week

 I've been enjoying our laid back schedule this week. For as much as I love Liturgical celebrations it's nice to have a week without a party.  I've been able to spend more time getting the house a little cleaner including gathering over ten bags of stuff for charity.  We've gotten a lot of school done and I'm so happy that we are right on schedule with where I want us to be for the year.

Here are some pictures from our week.


On Wednesday the kids were upstairs playing and I was cleaning the kitchen and happened to glance into the living room and see this adorable site. King was happily reading books by himself. I love how he sings when he reads. So cute! Grandma came over to watch the kids for a while and walked in the door and only found King sitting there reading books peacefully. Much different than when she usually comes over.

After spending the first quarter finishing up Primary of Arts Language Writing from the Institute for Excellance in Writing, Demand and I have started "Bible Heroes" by  IEW. It is so much fun!!  Demand is loving it and eager to do lessons everyday. In this picture we are playing a Noah adjective game. She (or Prophet, he played too) picks an animal and says "the (adjective) (animal) (verb) into the Ark. It was great fun!  Things got pretty silly. Notice how she is still in her jammies and hair is undone. This is how we roll some days.

After searching all around for his mask Rooster presented himself as such. Not the mask I had in mind but pretty cute none the less.

This is my attempt to capture King pretending to be a dog. He loves being a dog. He's panting in this picture. So much action all the pictures I took were blurry.

Friday I decided to make a distraction fort for the boys to play with while I did school with Demand. She was having just as much fun as they were. And you can see blurry little King having a blast too.

Here's the other angle of the fort.

Friday over all ended up being a bizarrely wonderful day.  First, Rooster was so polite at lunch. Instead of screaming like someone was ripping his finger nails off,  he said, "May I please have some ketchup?" the FIRST TIME!  Then we all went to the noon Tridentine Mass at our parish, even Mr. Sloth joined us. It's a good thing too. All the children at Mass is a challenge enough but it was our pastor who said Mass and he is very sensitive to the ahem, joyful sounds of children. I stood in back with King most of the time because he's so chatty and Mr. Sloth sat with the kids upfront. If it had been just me we would have all been in the lobby the entire Mass trying not to distract Father.  Shortly after Mass I noticed Rooster put his head in his hands, I asked him if he wanted to take a nap in Prophets bed expecting him to throw back a solid  three year old "NO" but instead he said, "Yep" and ran upstairs. As I got up to the room to close the blinds he met me at the door and said I'm going to take a nap now. AND HE DID! He never came out once! I was a little sad as we usually cuddle together until he falls asleep but this is great!  Prophet and Demand did great during quiet hour I even heard Demand encouraging Prophet to be a little quieter and when I came downstairs they were reading books together on the couch. How awesome is that!?!  THEN, yes it gets better, Rooster did puzzles for over an hour and a half. By himself. Happy as could be.  While Demand and Prophet played in Demands room. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE??  Finally it was time to make dinner. I realized I hadn't had my phone since Mass so I retrieved it from my coat to find a message from Mr. Sloth saying. "Don't make dinner I'll take care of it"
He wouldn't return my questioning so I was rather confused but delighted that I could get a little extra work done. He came home with two pizzas from his favorite pizza place across the street from his office. I asked if he had a craving and he said to read the note. The plot thickens.

My favorite Georgia Peach ordered dinner for us!! Isn't she the best?  What a great day!

All Saints Day

We had our second annual All Saints Day party today. While it's a lot of work to have back to back parties, Halloween and then All Saints the next morning it's totally worth it. This year Prophet wanted to be Noah. Like, REALLY wanted to be Noah. Rooster really wanted to be an angel with no prompting from anyone, Demand wanted to be Mary holding baby Jesus (nothing more, nothing less) and King, well he was St. Francis because the costume fit and was oh,so, cute on him.

Once again I followed the lead of the wonderful Catholic families that blog about their liturgical year and road their crafty coat tails all the home.

We had even more games than last year. We had "Canonize the Saint" (ring toss),  Saint coloring,  St. Anthony I spy/LookNFind game, Help St. Helen find the True Cross, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton's saints reading corner, and candy guessing jars that were saint themes.

I made this banner that I found on Shower of Roses. Shortly after I assembled the banner she posted on Facebook that she too was doing a guessing jar game. We both found it on the same blog but, Jessica, at Shower of Roses made awesome labels which she made available for free download. I am forever grateful for this woman. I want to be her when I grow up.

After our Trick or Treating mini party last night and the kids sleeping in because of a sugar coma we had to rush to get the house ready for the All Saints party. Everything was great though, we had lots of themed foods and then our friends brought tasty treats to share as well.

We had:

To drink: Apple/Cranberry Cider (which I forgot to offer to anyone), (St. Bernadette's )water, and "Blood of the Martyrs" Punch ( raspberry sherbert and sparkling cranberry juice).

To eat: "Kateri's Popcorn", "Saints Halos" (Onion rings), "St. Nicholas' Balls of Gold" (clementines), and "Our Lady Undoer of Knots", knotted Twizzlers. Funny story. Demand knotted half a package of Twizzlers earlier in the week an we stored them for the party. We opened the ziplock to find them all undone or cut in half. HA!!! Demand declared, "Our Lady is undoing knots in our lives already!" Lesson learned. We tried knotting the rest of the package but the same thing happened. I think we'll use string cheese next year.

Onto the fun pictures you've been waiting for.

Prophet dressed as Noah. I made his costume and as I told Mr. Sloth, I felt like Vanessa in that episode of the Cosby show where she offeres to make Theo a shirt. Not my talent.

I found this on Pinterest and loved it so I printed it out and temporarily taped it on an existing picture on the wall.

The guessing game jars. I did three jars and stuck with more savory foods as we were already loaded up on sugar from the night before, and our party is rather small. but Shower of Roses did like 15 it seems. She has labels for both the jars and the guessing sheets. Check it out.

Here's the link to the blog I found the idea on. Catholic Inspired.

Ring toss game. Throw a halo around a saint and get a prize. I had to let go and let God, and hope that none of my statues would get damaged like last year. It's not bowling people.

Help St. Helen find the Cross. This is a game I made up and we play on Demands Feast Day. Prophet hid nine crosses around the house for people to find.

The prizes. I just realized that with the kids taking a class at the Cathedral each week I have time to run to our local Catholic Goods Store so I stocked up on some prizes this week. Stickers, pencils, prayer cards, and St. Michael scapulars.

 Here's King, I mean St. Francis at the coloring station. He should be wearing birds but the boys broke them in 30 seconds. Long suffering. Long suffering. Long suffering.

Our Noah. At first when we discussed the costume I thought he would settle for nothing less than gopher wood and a handicap ramp but when I asked about him carrying around the Ark finger puppet set that he loves he  said, "Yes! That's a great idea! " Whew. Cancel the order for gopher wood.

And here's our Rooster.He's wearing our Priest alb that Prophets Godmother made, and the wings are awesome and easy but I failed to get a picture of them. Foam board + coffee filters= angel wings.

Blood of the Martyrs Punch. It would have been more red but I have been so obsessed with my apple-cranberry cider these past few days I accidentally used most of the cranberry juice and had to use a cran-apple blend instead. Oops!

Usually on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes we make "Bernadette's dirt" but I thought chocolate pudding/oreos would be a bad idea for this party. I didn't want to say Lourdes Water and be confusing so I went with St. Bernadette's Water.

Some of the crew. Notice Demand's costume? Yeah, she was Mary with baby Jesus but before the party she decided that her gown was choking her so it was the veil and Jesus, and then she didn't want to hold Jesus anymore so it was just the veil, and then, it was nothing.  I  need to make a Jesus Ergo for next year. ;)

Prophet, ahem, Noah, and St. George's Dragon enjoying the Ring Toss game.


Well there's nothing like back to back parties to make you want to deep clean your house so I spent the first part of the afternoon cleaning and then managed to get a great amount of school done with Demand and Prophet. AND had time to hang out with the kids for a while and shower before Mr. Sloth and I swapped for Mass. It's been a long time since I've been to Mass by myself. It was wonderful.

So "Feast of the Church Militant", done. "Feast of the Church Triumphant", nailed it. Tomorrow is the "Feast of the Church Suffering". May the souls of the faithfully departed. Rest. In. Peace.!

Last Days of Summer

Take Two: Thanks Blogger for your random deleting of all my text. Because I have so much free time to rewrite all this.

After a bizarre summer I'm finding myself trying to squeeze all the usual summer activities into two weeks.  These pictures will sum it up for you.

King enjoying his new bike trailer with Mama in the lead.

King taking a pool break at our one and only trip to the pool this week.

The crew worn out from their packed day in the sun.

Prophet enjoying  the Butterfly House. He could have been there all day and was sad when he had to leave his beloved butterfly behind. The other kids thought the butterfly house was gross.

After 8 1/2 hours at the fair with a heat index of  105, the kids wanted to go to the giant sandbox. King surprised us by thoroughly enjoying the giant sandbox. He loved running his hands through it, putting sand in the bucket and rubbing it through his hair.

Prophet made me sand pies to wash down all that fair food.

King is 90% sweat, sand, dirt, and chocolate chip in this picture, but boy is he happy.

The kids and I enjoying one of the many misty clouds to keep us cool. 

Finally go around to taking the kids to the beach for the first time this summer even though we only live a mile away.

King doing his daily kitchen inspection. Sometimes I think he's with the FBI searching for narcotics the way he empties those cupboards.

King enjoying a fire.

Rooster didn't quite make it to our room this morning. He was so worn out from a day in the sun he fell asleep on the stairs outside our room. I found him like this at 5:30am who knows when got there.

Demand enjoying breakfast at the fair. Strawberry crepes just like in Paris.


School starts on Tuesday and I have a little preparing left to do. I'm not ready to start waking up at 5:30am on a daily basis but I am ready to get this kids on a routine.

Happy Summer!

Kings 1st Birthday Party

First off, my blog looks like junk. I apologize.  I'll fix it as soon as I do eighteen loads of laundry.

Just under a month after he turned one I finally got around to having a proper party for King . Ahem, I've renamed "Mister", he will here on out be referred to as "King".

Long before the great Daoust-Deluge, I had planned to have a "Cookies N Milk" party for King. It wasn't all I originally planned but I did what I could.


Demand and Prophet were kind enough to give you a tour of the party. As is tradition in this house most pictures involve them eating something.

Our Cookies N Milk table.
I wasn't crazy enough to make cookies, all were prepackaged or bakery cookies.

The bottles were recycled Starbucks Latte bottles. The idea of drinking 25 starbucks lattes makes me nauseous but thankfully Sidekick was willing to step in and tackle the job for me. I ordered the blue and white straws online. Aren't they fun?

Demand enjoying a chip in front of the food area. To keep it simple (and save my marriage) food was easy and limited. Pasta salad, fruit salad, nuts, chips.

The drink area. Demand is not thrilled with her options. Water or alchohol. Goodness, there's a table full of cookies and milk on the other side of the patio, kid.

Hows that almond milk, Prophet?

King enjoying his first birthday cookie after waking up from his nap. 

You may be thinking, "Good idea taking his clothes off for the cupcake eating." You would be wrong. He had a massive blowout right before cake time. You roll with the punches.

That was Kings long overdue-short n simple- 1st birthday. Welcome to a big family kid. 

When it rains it pours.

The last few months have been just a snow ball of stresses leaving Mr. Sloth and I saying it only gets easier from here, right? The answer is no. It can always be worse, in fact it's my motto.

It started with natural stresses of life, long winter, four young children, colds and stomach flus chained together. Then Mr. Sloth took over the reins of bill paying which was a big of a mess as I thought it was. Then the business hit a hiccup, a big, giant, serious hiccup. And from there our stress snowball has picked up speed. It seems like it's one thing after another. Many things I won't name here, but  this week it got even worse.

Friday-My dad has emergency surgery to remove a bowel obstruction
Monday-Mr. Sloths car dies leaving the choice to fix a paid off car with 200,000+ miles on it or replace it. Replacement is not an option.

And then today happened. As I am teaching vacation Bible school this week I had to pretend to be a "real person", with a "real job".  I have been getting up between 4:45am and 5:30am everyday. Today I woke up a little late at 6am. I did the  usual, turned the shower on cold.....because our water heater only makes enough hot water if you run it on cold for a LONG time. (fun stuff) Grabbed a cup of coffee and said my morning prayers and did some morning web surfing before jumping in the shower. I was in the middle of shaving my first of two legs (in case you didn't know how many legs I have) when I heard. "BANG,BANG,BANG".  I knew right away that it was Mark, and he was serious. So I turned off the shower but it didn't get quieter. I jumped out of the shower.....and into a GIANT puddle of water. GIANT. MASSIVE. 5 INCHES DEEP. STILL POURING OUT OF THE TOILET ,WATER.

WHAT. THE . WHAT?

There was no clog in the toilet or anything, just started overflowing. As it was early the only people were awake were children. It was Prophet who discovered the sopping wet puddle outside of our bathroom and woke up Mr. Sloth.

This is where it gets worse.

It was RAINING in our kitchen. RAINING.

In all honestly the next hour wasn't more stressful than usual. (For all you non-parents out there put that into perspective, having children is like having your house flood every morning with an unstoppable disaster. ) In fact I think the excitement of the flooding house kept the kids occupied. I often heard Rooster in the background saying "Can I swim, Momma? I swim?"

Ah. Laughter.

Today we began demolition. All of a sudden the real mess of everything is starting to hit me. Thankfully insurance is covering us stay somewhere else. We haven't left the house yet though. After Vacation Bible School I dropped off another little girl at her home, picked up Mr. Sloth so we could all go out an eat. Then drove him to the dealership to pick up his car. Did I mention his car died on Monday? Fun stuff. And then headed back to the house. As of right now there are two ways to get in the house. To get upstairs you have to go through the front door to get to the main level or basement you have to go through the garage.  Right now Mister is sleeping and the rest of the bunch is in the playroom in the basement. Sooooo to check on Mister I have to go upstairts through the construction site, out the garage, around  to the front door and then upstairs. Did I mention it's raining? Because it is.


In order to keep us sane throughout this ordeal I will be starting Operation Bright Side. This should help remind me that things could always be worse. Always.

My list so far.

We were home when it flooded, not out of town.

It was a small flood, not a fire.

We didn't lose anything of value that cannot be replaced.

We get new floors and carpets, and possibly new table, chairs, and bathroom. (crossing fingers I can get a new shower!)

My dry dusty plants are finally getting a nice refresher sitting in the rain outside.

I didn't like Demands purple carpet anyway but it was fine condition, not being replaced anytime soon.

The kids may get to go swimming for a few days.

We are leaving on vacation next week anyway.

The playroom, tv, and kids rooms are completely useable which makes living easier.

We have three other bathrooms.

It's not winter. 


Here's out living room. Our bedroom is right above so a lot of the leaking happened here.

Kitchen took the biggest hit as the bathroom is right above our kitchen table.

Here our my houseplants getting a refreshing pick-me-up. The rainy day hopefully helps to wash all their dust off.  I trimmed the two on the left of dead leaves and such, haven't gotten around to the other one yet.

My homeschool room/ house bar. You can see all our drinking glasses lined up on the kids table and liquor bottles lined up on the floor.

Ending Project Week

I turned on the heat today. It's June 6th.  Laura Ingalls Wilder ain't got nothing on this Long Winter. No wonder my kids are going bonkers.

As I mentioned in my last post I am trying to spend this week working on house projects and getting some long over due spring cleaning done. (It's finally spring....in JUNE!)

Next week is vacation Bible School where I somehow found myself volunteering to teach preschool. Right. Because that went so well for me in the fall. Ugh. Why do I do this to myself?? Two weeks ago a friend asked me to make her sons graduation cake. Even though I had a stressful week including working two days at the Homeschool Conference I thought it was a fun idea.  So at 11:30pm the night before the conference I finished the cake two days before the party. Personally I'm not totally happy with the cake, but everyone seemed to love it.

Clearly there is foundation issues with the corners sloping down. I could have fixed it but chose to let it go. Humbly, let it go. I also want to point out the messy kitchen in the background. Did I clean it? Heck no. I had a glass of wine and caught up on the new Arrested Development. This is why Mr. Sloth dislikes my cake making hobby.





Then I had to work the Homeschool Conference. I say had but really I volunteered, sort of. The science curriculum we use is really expensive and the last two years I received one for free if I work the booth during the conference. Which is great, saved us $600 over the past two years but I miss out on a lot of the conference. While I set up the table a herd of women and their rolling suitcases bolted for the used book sale at the opening of the conference. I wanted to bolt like cattle too. (super sad face)  Then again, since I was working and our supplies were late arriving I actually sneaked over to the used book sale before it started and filled my suitcase at the first table!  I found a TON of wonderful things. American Girl book sets, chapter books for Demand, early readers for Happy, and I even found Level 1 & 2  of Demands Latin curriculum. Saweet!  Mr. Sloth and Demand are so excited they can't wait until the new school year to start it together. I figured since Latin is an extra curricular subject and Mr. Sloth has taken Latin before it would be a great activity for them to do in the evenings whenever they have time. Not every night but here and there.

When I showed Demand all of the books I bought at the conference she asked if she could sell them in her toy sale. Yeah, no.


 

After the Homeschool Conference ended on Saturday I met Mr. Sloth and the kids at our friends house for the graduation party. It was a much needed break, and they had Buffalo Wild Wings. Score!  Mr. Sloth called from the van before arriving and asked if I could take the kids while he ran to the Cathedral for confession. What we didn't know was that the priest who was doing confessions was hammering down some wings at the party before rushing off to the Cathedral. If we had only known!

So that was last week now you know why I didn't want to leave the house this week.  Next week we have vacation Bible School Mon-Friday from 8:30-12pm.  Then we head off on vacation. Friends of our who have almost the exact family except their baby is a girl and ours is Mister, they won the use of a duplex at Glacier National Park. So we are driving out there and taking our sweet American Road Trip time doing so. We can't wait to take the kids to Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, Custer's Last Stand, Wind caves, Walnut Grove.  In fact next week, when I'm not teaching VBS I'll be assembling a travel treasure hunt for the kids to take with them.

Today was much like yesterday. I wanted to get projects done and the children wanted to fight. By 8am. 8AM!! Rooster was throwing all out screaming temper tantrums. It is almost as if getting up before the crack of dawn doesn't benefit his mood at all. I'm already getting up at 5:15am I cannot get up any earlier to be the first one awake. I decided that I needed back up. By mid morning I had locked down a mother's helper. I could come and get her anytime, if only Mister would wake up from his morning nap. (taps foot)

(taps foot.)

(taps foot)

Finally at noon he woke up and we picked her up. It wasn't a perfect solution. My house was still a disaster (aside from my bedroom which is still loverly) but at least the kids were happy and not being yelled at by mom. I was able to finally organize the laundry room closet. It looks so purrrdy now.

This is the humble before. It became our, if we can shove it in and walk away without an avalanche-it works closet.

I made the curtains last summer when I was learning to sew. This is what I made with some of the left over fabric.

I desperately want a counter top for the washer and dryer. Grains of detergent get jammed under something and when I moved it horrendous metal scratching sounds are heard and felt. Plus the tops are all scratched up (I wonder why) and uneven and uninviting. Look how much brighter just trying these two white boards from the garage make the room look. I could fold all kinds of laundry on a counter top Mr. Sloth. I could I could. I also envision a bright blue vase filled with white or pink flowers. And a basket of sorts for a natural element. It will be grand. Someday.

 

Here's how the closet turned out. I only allowed myself an hour to work on it (having already started sorting and purging the night before) . So it's not done, done. Mr. Sloth was concerned by the lack of labels.

Two $5 bins from Target, some scrapbook paper, and viola! A new pretty closet. Up top we have a bin for rarely used items like bread making and beer making items. With coolers on top (unseen) of the container. Then our meat slicer (surprisingly handy) and our ice cream maker, and no Rooster we are not having ice cream today.  Below we have our new griddle on top of our picnic bin. This bin has paper plates, cups, utensils, napkins, foil containers, etc. Then clearly we have our newly stocked paper towel supply with my cooking-candies bin below. Don't tell Mr. Sloth there is candy in there.  Below that we have our roaster and our bin of tupperware.

That's what I was able to accomplish today. I think I'm getting the mothers helper again tomorrow. Other than planning out VBS I'm sure I'll just get general cleaning done. That will be nice.

Are you nesting? Say WHAT?!?

The long winter took a real toll on me. I never really got out of a rut that started in October, and now here we are "the last day of school" and I don't know what to think. Are we done with the school? Nope. Do I care? Nope.  It's first grade for goodness sakes. We'll continue to plug away throughout the summer, not every day but when we have time.

I recently pulled together a new schedule drawing from the ideas of Managers of Their Homes. I haven't really implemented it as of yet, but I will soon. This week I am focusing on the house and the many projects, or half done projects that need to be taken care of.

Today I re-evaluated our homeschool room. I don't mind that we spent so much time in the dining room this year as it was a loooooong winter and we needed the Vitamin D, but I would like to make the homeschool room just a little more inviting.

While I was thinking about some changes that could be made I stumbled upon the perfect desk for Demand and the kids.  It was a HUGE white desk, very plain for only $30 on Craiglist.  65 x 30 inches! Before I knew it I had arranged for Mr. Sloth to pick up the desk and had ordered two shelves from Target.  The desk is so deep I had room for two four foot shelves to sit on top of the desk with plenty of room for books. My wheels were spinning I have a fellow homeschooling mom who hasn't been feeling the wrath of reproductive hormones over the past two years who loves to decorate and organize agree to paint the new desk for me.  The desk will be either orange or teal. If you notice in the picture of our shelving system we have bins with colorful polkadots on them. I wanted to take one of those neutral bright colors to bring more life to the room. Besides, bright colors are "in" right now. I may spraypaint one of the folding chairs that never seems to leave our house (???) instead of buying a new desk chair. And then a fun desk lamp should round off the look. So excited! Mr. Sloth has already picked up the desk so now I just need to wait for my friend to paint it and for my Target delivery to show up. I don't know why I waited so long for the Target Card. It's comes out of checking ( because we don't use credit cards) and I save 5% EVERYTIME I shop at Target and I get free shipping online. SAWEET!  So not only are those two shelves coming to my doorstep, I don't have to pay the $40 for shipping. Yippee!!


Here's the current bookshelf. I may sell the armoire on left and line that wall with the same shelving system.
 Demand is rooting for and blue desk while I am leaning towards an orange one.

 

 This is where the desk will go. This is Demands pile of stuff to sell at her toy sale. I'm going to sell the faded couch as well. We never sit down here. And I'll give away that swing (sniff, sniff) as we replaced it with an electric one with Mister. It's also been on my list since last year to make a curtain for our under stairs storage and to recover my chair, maybe this will be my year.




Next on my list of random projects was our bedroom lamps.Since we've moved in we've only had our ceiling fan light in our room as our former night stand lamps looked great in our new bedroom and we never got around to replacing them.  Last year I found some really nice Pottery Barn lamp shades at a garage sale in the perfect red for our bedroom. We were in no rush to get lamps however as little Mister, Mister was soon to become our bunkmate. As we knew so well there would be no reading in bed for sometime.  Even though Mister technically sleeps in our room (he falls asleep in our room) and then gets moved to his crib after his  wild brothers are asleep) we can actually sit and read in our room now. Hypothetically...if we wanted to....it could happen.

So last week I was motivated enough to buy the lamps to go with the lampshades so we could read in bed. Brought them home to find out they were incompatible with our lamp shades. (wan-wan) After thinking about it for a few days and studying the design of the lamps I decided there must be a converter of sorts out there. On one of my many daily trips to Target I discovered in fact that there WERE lampshade converters. I eagerly brought two home, put them on the lamps bases, put the lampshade on and then  Mr. Sloth declared that the lamps were too big for the shades. ARGH!  Today I exchanged the lamps for smaller ones and was finally able to put lamps, with pretty lampshades, on our nightstands so we can read. Theoretically. And nothing motivates you to clean your room like something new and pretty now does it?

Ta-da!









 Little Mister enjoying the new clean floor to explore.





I also did a lot of random things like changing light bulbs, cleaning showers and toilets, and finally getting around to hanging the coat hook in the boys room. But you don't know about the boys room because I have been off line for months thrashing about in that horrid winter. Blah.  Mr. Sloth asked me at dinner if I was "Nesting" I scoffed and said, "I was trying to fix all the damage that was done to my nest over the last year. "

Here's to hearing more from the Sloths!