Rough Day

Yesterday was a bad day.  We started with a morning of no one listening, and almost not making to school on time.  Then I took the twins to do errands.  There was fighting, screaming, tearing, throwing things, and general mayhem on the drive there.  I was not exactly looking forward to going into the stores, but since I had to drive a half hour to get there, I might as well.

I regretted it.

But it needed to be done.

I tried bribing the kids for good behavior with stuff from the dollar bins at Michaels.  As soon as we got into the car, the twins grabbed each other's special treats, and broke them.

I actually offered to give Annie to the cart guy at Costco.  She was refusing to come inside the store, stomping her feet and yelling.  I finally talked her into sitting in the cart, when Maddie (who had been sitting in the basket) climbed over into seat to sit by Annie.  Annie started screaming again.

When we finally got home, I heaved a huge sigh of relief.  I had driven over the speed limit trying to make it home faster.  If I had been pulled over, I would have referred the officer to the loud hooligans in the back seats.  "Please don't give me a ticket.  Can't you see I'm being punished enough?"

Elizabeth made it home, and fulfilled her job of adding to the general air of contention.  A half hour later, it was time to load up the girls to go get Emma from SEEK.  After 10 minutes of trying to get shoes and coats on, I loaded up two girls without coats and another who actually had both shoes and a coat on.  That's when the paperboy came up the drive asking about payment.

I don't pay the paperboy.  I take money to the newspaper office.  But my attitude as I tried to explain and load children in the car I'm afraid said- Leave me alone!

But that's what I wanted to say to everyone at that point.

I left the kids in the car when I walked inside the school to get Emma.  When I returned with Emma two minutes later, no one was still in their seat with their seat belt on (like I told them to), and two of the three were crying.

When we got home, I had about 5 minutes to fix Emma a sandwich before getting back into the car to take Emma to Activity Days.  I got to listen to the sweet sounds of three "very hungry" children whine about how ravenous they were.  You had snack exactly an hour ago.  Geez.  We would have dinner when we got back, and it would be more exciting that a peanut butter sandwich.

Anyway, when Ryan got home at about 7, I was a very grouchy mom.

Later as I was lying in bed, I was thinking about my day.  The desire to hog tie and gag my children had been very strong that day.  A blog post from a friend about her kids' pet gerbil eating her babies (which you can read about here) rolled through my frustrated mind.  All of a sudden, something clicked.  I bet that mom gerbil had just been tired of the kids pestering, poking, teasing, and fighting.  The baby who disappeared probably had just been bad one too many times.  Bam!  Problem gone.  The one who was missing an arm had ripped up his sibling's special, new book.  Ha!  Bet you won't do that again.

Maybe it's a good thing I am not a gerbil.  I don't really want to eat my offspring.

More Craftiness

Emma has been begging me to teach her how to sew.  Since today was a holiday, I decided to humor her.  We went down to the store and she picked out fabric for a pillow case.  I figured it was something with all straight seams, and both she and I could handle that.  (Tutorial found here.)

Ryan built us an end table this weekend too.  I helped a little.  Mostly I handed Ryan the screws and wished the wind would go away.  (Tutorial found here.)  We put on the 2nd coat of paint this morning.

It's on wooden toy blocks until we are sure the paint is fully dry.

Redneck

We have roughly a half acre of our property that is just dirt and weeds.  Ryan wants to plant pasture grass this spring, so today while we were outside enjoying the sunshine, he had an idea on how to smooth the dirt. He hitched up a harrow that was left by the previous occupants to his truck.  The kids sat in the truck bed, and we plowed our field.  With Ryan's rear wheel '88 Mazda truck.  I may have felt a little redneck.

Especially when his radio antenna looks like this:

Is that a coat hanger, you ask?  Yep.  Yep, it is.  It was installed by the auto shop teacher at the high school where Ryan works because Ryan asked him to.

Bad Word

Annie was very angry with Emma, since Emma wasn't wanting to play with her.  From the top of the stairs I heard, "Emma, you are a BAD WORD."

Notice I didn't use parentheses.  Instead of using a bad word, she actually said the words, "bad word."

I found this quite clever.  Whatever Emma's definition of a bad word is, whether "stupid" or something much worse, that's what she called Emma.

Valentines Day

Ryan was inspired by all the gift giving going on at the high school today.  

 Maddie thought she'd pose with my Valentine's Day booty.

Ryan picked it up on his way home from work. He bought the bear for $1 on the street.  He says, "Nothing says love like crap made in China," and, "If it works for those stupid high school boys, I figured it would work for me."  I feel so.... loved?  But I will never turn down chocolate.

Annie thought the bear made a nice pillow.

Rooster Massacre Day

One day last November Ryan brought home 20 baby chicks.  He had hatched a bunch of eggs for a friend, who turned around, bought his own incubator and hatched his own.  So we adopted Ryan's batch.  Over the last couple of months, we've lost a few.  In the end, we had about 13 chickens to keep our other 4 company.  But, seeing as we already had a rooster, Ryan decided the 7 boy chicks had done enough growing.

And so, Saturday was the official Rooster Massacre day.  Elizabeth thought it was very interesting.  Ryan didn't allow Elizabeth to watch the death, but she was very curious about everything else.  

Halfway though the process, Emma came out to see how it was going.  Elizabeth was being tutored by her father about body parts at the time, so she held up a heart to show her sister.  "Look, Emma, it's squishy!"  

At that point, Emma ran into the house crying.  She has decided she will never ever ever want to do anything with "guts."

                                   

 Look!  Valentine's Day dinner.  They were really tasty, but only "Cornish game hen" size.

Window Seat

Yesterday after church, I felt the need to get the cushion done for the window seat.  Ryan cut me a piece of plywood, and I got out the roll of memory foam I had picked up at Walmart earlier in the week.  Ryan got me set up with a staple gun, and then left to go home teaching.  I was going to impress him with my craftiness when he got home, supposedly an hour later.

I got the padding hot glued to the board.  I decided that might be easiest to do outside since foam leaves a mess when it gets cut.  Then I hauled it inside, cut my fabric, and tried to staple it to the board.

I could not get those staples into that wood.  I tried pushing really hard, I tried another angle, I tried googling staple gun videos to figure out what I was doing wrong.

Well, I would not be impressing Ryan when he came home.

I tried texting Ryan- what was I doing wrong?  Could he think of anything?

Time passed.  No response.  It's been an hour and more.

"When are you coming home?"

Still nothing.

Now I was pouting.  Seriously?  He was doing this to me when he knew I was working on a project?!?!?!!

(The outside work.  Just me and my mighty glue gun.)

Finally Ryan came home.  Apparently the staples he loaded up where about 3x too long.  No wonder I couldn't get those stupid staples into the wood.

 Cushion done, putty applied and sanded.

Next step, paint.

 And done, with 4 new pillows.  I may have "borrowed" some old pillow forms from the twins for the smaller pillows.

Then I took the left over fabric from the window seat cushion, and made pillows for the couch.

Defiance

Annie was on the stairs giving me the evil eye.  I had told her to go to her room for being naughty, and she wasn't having it.

"Annie, are you going to go to your room, or do I have to carry you there?"  (Please don't make me drag you up the stairs....  You are getting so heavy for that.)

She debated this in her head.  Finally she said, "Fine.  I go to my room.  I'm going to get naked.  I'm going to take off my shirt, and my pants, and my underwear, and I'm going to be all naked!"  She looked at me defiantly.

That's the worst you've got?  "Ok, sweetie.  Go ahead."  Whatever floats your boat, so long as you are in your room.

She stomped up to her room.  (But didn't get naked after all.)

Catchin' Up

I am just going to post a bunch of random pictures, since I have some catching up to do.

Annie and Maddie went through a phase of pretending to be babies.  Here I swaddled them up in blankets, and told them to take a nap.

 Our rooster, surveying his territory.

 Last weekend, Ryan built us a window seat.  (I helped a little too.)  The weather was really nice around lunch time, and we were all outside enjoying the sunshine.  By about 4 pm, it was really cold again, and Ryan hadn't really noticed.  He was trying to drill holes for the screws and shaking too badly to do a good job.  Then he realized that he was shivering.  So he put on the sweatshirt I had brought down for him the hour before.

 Our window seat, so far.  We need to cover up the screws with wood putty, sand, and then paint.  I also have plans to make a cushion and matching pillows.  Once we get that done, Ryan may build me an end table or two for the front room. :)

 Annie and Maddie kidnapped my boots after church.  Annie put them on first and said, "I'm old Mommy."  (Way to make me feel nice there kid.)  I got a picture of Maddie in the boots.

Sisterly love.

Emma's favorite position, using the new denim quilt, and pillows I made.

Silliness

The girls and I played with Ryan's school iPad one Sunday afternoon, taking pictures of ourselves.

Student of the Month

Yesterday was the Student of the Month assembly at our elementary school.  It happened to be during Ryan's plan period, so he was able to come too.  It was nice, considering I had the twins, plus Jane and Joe with me.

We are so proud of you, Elizabeth!  Congratulations.

Random-ness

I've been blog tagged.  Since I have done a dismal job blogging so far this year, I might as well use it as something to help me get started again.  So, first off- 11 random facts about me.

*I love to read.  I usually pick up "fluff" to read, over biographies, informational, and self help books.  This is my escape from the craziness that is my life.  It should be fun. :)  I do read those other kinds sometimes.
*I am currently addicted to Pinterest.  So far, the hubby hasn't complained since it has brought some good recipes into our lives.  It is also helping me slowly decorate our new house since I am untalented in that area.
*I hate folding socks.  If someone were to develop disposable socks, I would be all over it.
*I wear socks to bed.
*I like watery herbal tea.  I use the same tea bag about 3 times before I throw it away.
*I run cold.  The rest of my family can be wearing shorts and t-shirts, and I will have a hoodie on.
*I frequently have insomnia.
*I love to bake and cook for fun.  Daily dinners, however, are harder.
*I like to look at pretty dresses and clothes, but wear clothes that are more functional than pretty.
*Once I accidentally stole cheese, felt awful about it, sneaked back into Costco with it in my purse, and paid for it.  I almost didn't go back in, as the then 2-year-old twins were already buckled into their car seats and going anywhere with those two run-aways was a pain.  I argued with myself for almost 5 minutes.  My conscience finally won out.
*I dislike runny fried eggs.  It screams uncooked at me.

Now for the random questions I am supposed to answer.

1.  My pet peeve:  Others not changing the toilet paper roll when it runs out.
2.  My favorite feature about myself:  I have really thick, beautiful hair.
3.  Do you bite, clip or file nails?  Clip.
4.  Do I lie to the dentist about my dental habits?  Sometimes, about the flossing.
5.  If I were an animal, what would I be?  An indoor cat that naps in the sunny spot on the couch.
6.  Favorite movie quote.  "Inconceivable!"  and, "I have such tremblings and flutterings all over.  I have such spasms in my side, pains in my head, and beatings of my heart that I can get no rest either night or day."  (Have I mentioned I love Jane Austen books and movies?)
7.  If I had to eat the same thing for dinner for a week, what would I choose?  Pizza.
8.  Which side of Velcro am I most like?  The soft clingy side.
9.  Favorite childhood cartoon.  She-Ra, Flinstones, Jem and the Holograms.
10. Would I rather have hot cocoa or a smoothie right now?  Hot cocoa.
11.  Do you have a phobia?  Yes, I don't like being in elevators alone.