I heart Tuesdays

If you remember, Tuesday is our Friday. When Dale gets off work today, we will be in weekend mode. I especially love today because we don't have ballet, this is the last week of karate, temporarily, and my house is (relatively) clean! I worked out this morning, the kids are at school, Leila and I did her lesson, now after lunch I'm a free agent. I can do whatever I want because I have worked really hard every day this week. As much as I loathe housework when it's piling up, I really don't mind doing it a little at a time. Of course there are plenty of things that could use some extra attention, but as far as being on top of things, I am king of the mountain!

I'll tell you what does trip me up on our "weekends" though. I get in that mode, you know? And I want to just order pizza for dinner. Have Dale grab some hamburgers after running errands tomorrow. Go out for dinner and a movie to celebrate a well-deserved break from the rat-race. It's a snowball effect that leaves me feeling anxious and full of regret. Having my menu posted and the meat thawed for it helps because if I don't suggest pizza for dinner, everyone else will assume that I want to make dinner and that it would hurt my feelings to suggest otherwise. It's a trickery of the mind, I realize, but it's-- necessary to prevent the avalanche.

We usually go out for one fun day of our weekend. Maybe I've mentioned before that it usually starts with lunch out, a run through Target, a few random errands and occasionally a farmer's market. It predictable, but we love it; I mean I love it. Last week we changed it up and went to the pier, remember the dolphins? But that kind of detour from the plan is something I tend to balk at when it's mentioned. I am a creature of habit- I'm trying to be better about not shooting down suggestions like this, which I was careful not to do last week and boy was I glad! Honestly, I would be fine with eating the same food at the same restaurant every week because that's just the way I am. Dale brings the spice to my life, and I love him for it.

So adios, friends. I tend to get a little swept away during the celebration of rest, so if I disappear, don't fret. I'll be back soon. xoxo

O bla dee o bla da life goes on oh...

I woke up this morning with this little bundle of joy and as much as I wanted to put my tennis shoes and and get going on my workout, I couldn't keep my eyes open. I sat down on the couch next to her and slipped in and out of consciousness.

I am just going to have to start going to bed earlier. I think if I would just go straight to bed when I get up to go, I'd get an extra half hour of sleep. But you know how it is when you're the mom. You get up and say, "I'm going to bed." Then you carry all the dishes into the living room. You move the laundry from the washer to the dryer and turn it on. You pick up the pieces of dog food that were scattered all over the floor earlier in the day. You go into the bathroom to brush your teeth and pick up laundry around the hamper, wipe down the sink and edge of the tub with the towel that was left on the floor. On the way to the bedroom, you pick up socks and toys and pieces of trash off the floor, then deliver them to the rightful place and owner. You pick up the books that were pulled off the bookshelf and replace them for the fourteenth time today. Once in the bedroom, you straighten the shoes, hang up jackets and dress pants, and fold the shirts that were hung to air dry, and put away the clean laundry that you delievered earlier. Finally tucked into bed, you run through the list for tomorrow: appointments, todos, and deadlines; then you thank God for a life that is busy enough to knock you out for the night in the next five minutes. zzz... At least that's what I do.

...la la la la life goes on.

Saturday's Recital

Every couple of days, there is some sort of instruction happening in my yard or at the park or in the forts. For a while they had Bible study, then they were teaching hula dancing, as in with hula hoops, also French classes, math this summer... and so on and so on.

The latest frenzy is ballet for the girls, and karate, or any sort of fighting, for the boys. Along with the instructional classes, Kennedy has organized a girls' club that meets once a week, or more if they have pressing issues to deal with, and random fund raisers.To share the fruit of their labor, they girls arrange recitals at various intervals and invite anyone that will sit in a lawn chair and watch, as well as clap and cheer at the end. Sometimes there are snacks, sometimes there aren't.This week we had the pleasure of a mixed martial arts display in the yard next to the dancers. It was riveting!Leila was not allowed to participate in the recital because she did not commit to ALL the practices and she refused to take seriously the dress rehearsal, so at the end, we got up and did our own show. (It was totally unrehearsed, if you can believe that!)She mostly just needs a little spotlight time. It's understandable being fifth of six. I mean the kid doesn't get any attention. Ever. She needs extra love and affection. It's DUE her! (I can hear her boohooing outside the front door. I'm sure it's from a lack of necessary attention and the need to have her own way.) Kennedy takes these performances very seriously. Because she takes them seriously, everyone else takes them seriously. Especially the littlest girl's mother. She actually brought snacks for the pre-show rehearsal. Gotta love it.I finally told the boys to let Zack get off the bottom of the dog pile. He is the gentle giant of the neighborhood. After months and months of hard work, and a few weeks of consistently showing up to karate, he earned his yellow belt. Yay Zack!Lovely, girls. Just lovely. I can't get over how long Kennedy looks in these pictures.I gotta tell you, it took some prodding to get myself to post this picture. I realize it's not the most flattering photograph of me, but Leila walked in and squealed with glee when she saw it, confirming to me that I did the right thing. She said, "Remember how much fun we had when you were swinging me, awound and wound..." This comprised a good portion of our performance.I thought it was so sweet that the girls gave the matching dresses to the little ones and wore the closest thing to it themselves. It seemed very selfless, and made for a lovely show.

AANNNNDDD courtesy. They added the little neighbor girl who looked on longingly through the whole show but also was not invited to participate because she had missed most of the practices. Kennedy generously allowed her to dance the (real) finale because she hung out all morning hoping for a skirt to join the show, and because she practiced the last dance with them, which was critical to the flow of the performance.

Bravo! Encore! Beautiful! (raahhh the crowd cheers and claps) The end.

Disclaimer

I don't always take the photos that I post on this blog. Usually they are my originals, but these two dolphins came off the Internet. I'm not trying to steal anybody's thunder by doing this; I am just aware that it's more fun to read when you have an image to connect to the experience. So celebrate with me and know that I'd MUCH rather be looking at an armadillo dead on the side of the road than a frolicking dolphin in the crystal blue ocean, because it would mean that I'm home.

In other news, there is a position opening up this winter that we are very, VERY interested in. Currently there are a few roadblocks that could make it difficult and even impossible to get the transfer. If you know Jesus, we need your prayers. Honestly, in the deepest recesses of our hearts we only want what God wants for us. With that said, we believe He has put that desire in our hearts as well as plans for the ranch, etc. So ask Him on our behalf. Just add it to the end of your prayers or every time you think of one of us, or every time you read this blog, "And please bring the Suttons home". In exchange for your faith and generosity on our behalf, when we are safely home to stay, I will gladly make grilled cheese sandwiches and kool-aid for your children when you come over to play, and deliver cookies to you on Valentine's day if I can reach you, and sometimes toilet paper your car when you least expect it because my kids are almost old enough to participate in this kind of revelry. Have a fantastic Saturday and I'll keep you posted as the story develops.

Dolphins!!!

Yesterday we took a trip up the coast to go to Avila Barn and to the fish markets on the pier. As we were pulling into the parking lot, Micah said, "Hey what's that! It looks like a shark or a whale or something!" We all balked at him knowing that sometimes the sea lions can look like fish in the way they slip in and out of the water.

You can imagine our exuberance when we saw this right out in the middle of the fishing boats off the pier! Apparently there's some sort of migration this time of year and they are hanging out at Avila Beach for a while. We backtracked a little down to the beach where we spotted a school of six all diving in and out of the water together. It was a breath-taking sight! God continues to deliver these sweet, sweet blessings to us out here on the other side of the world.

Routine

I've never had a solid daytime routine. Every morning/evening is different from the next and does not resemble the day before. We eat three meals a day, but they sit in about a two-hour window. The chores get done (almost) every week, but not on the same days, and not usually by the same person. I get up early with Deisha, but usually I sleep on the couch for an hour while she stares at the magic box in the living room sipping her milky. Bedtime may be midnight, it may be 11:30, it may be 1:30am. My life is a wild card; it's something that has always troubled me.

I explain it away by the number of times we've moved, the constant shifting of my husband's work schedule, and the fact that we home school. What I really would love is some regularity, a little predictability, some kind of routine in my universe. (It's funny how my friends that live routine lives crave a little chaos in their worlds...)

There have been a couple of little things in my day that have created a bit of this normalcy for me. A few months back, Dale and I started playing cards after he got off work. It happens every night. Every night that we do it builds anticipation for the next night. It's not that the games are exciting because I usually lose, it's that we do it. Together. Every night. The other thing is that Deisha gets up between 6:30 and 7:30 every morning. This is not new, it's been happening for sixteen months now. What is new, is that I am waking up and working out before the kids get up.

The amazing thing about these new landmarks in my day is that I am sleeping like a baby- a good baby that really sleeps at night. When round four of our card game rolls around, I am watching the clock because my body is ready to go to bed. I used to dread bedtime because it would take so long for me to shut down. Most of the time, right before I'd drift off, Deisha would sound the alarm and send me into hysterics, knowing that it would take that much longer to get back to sleep. Because I am sleeping so well, even with the nighttime waking, I wake up ready to be awake. It's a cycle that seeps into every area of my life.

I just thought you ought to know.

Indoor Forts

I love it when they entertain themselves with fort building. Unfortunately for me there's no place to sit when the forts are up which means I'm usually sitting here in this chair while all kinds of insanity swirls around the next room.

As long as they are busy and working together instead of fighting, I encourage them. When the fighting starts about who got the best cushion, I start to lose my mind. I mean really, what could "the good cushion" be? Deisha also loves this game because it means someone is running around inside with her.

Lol is a creative builder. If the need ever arises to live in a squatter's village, she'll be the first one I call. She uses everything she can find in her house. I'm wondering if my spatula disappeared into one of these creations. It's been gone for some time now.

Micah has the mind of an engineer. He is constantly asking me how things work. The other day he asked me who invented electricity and how it works. I hope I was right- I know it involves friction and the transfer of electrons... Someday he'll read an article or a book about it and set me straight if I wasn't. Jasmine, is a lovely fort-guest and participates only when she has a nice place for her head to be displayed.

Trebo is perpetually grounded, which means he asks me at regular intervals if he can get out the cushions. By regular intervals, I mean that as soon as the kids go outside he starts asking every seven minutes until the answer is yes.

I love these kids, I LOVE these kids.

Reading

I have a constant list running in my head. It started when I was planning my wedding and hasn't stopped running since. One of thing recurring things on the list is "read to the kids". It stays because it rarely makes the cut in the day-to-day. I love to read to my kids. I especially love to read to them when they are attentive and begging for more. Usually that only happens when they are all tucked into bed but not quite ready to sleep. But this day, we somehow found ourselves with a quiet afternoon in a relatively clean living room. It started with Leila, and then Trebo joined the fun, only now he was taking turns doing the reading. Then Snow White climbed up on my lap and listened. These are the moments I thank God that I'm alive. It was pure bliss for me and a treasured moment of peace for these three, my little ones.

It's Friday, I'm in LOVE!!!

This morning I woke up to screaming. Not once, not twice, but three times I rolled out of bed to check the baby, remind her to sleep, and shut doors in an attempt to let everyone else get some rest. By the third time, Tre was yelling alongside the screaming baby because she kept waking him up. Poor dude sleeps right next to her crib and there's just nothing we can do about it. Micah doesn't wake up, Dale has to rest in order to be sharp for work, and frankly, there's just no room in the girls' room for another bed.

I cried a little today. For a year I've been telling myself that by this time it would be over with, but it's not over. There's no end in sight. Oh sure, she sleeps through the night sometimes. Even several nights in a row she'll zonk from 7:30pm-6:30am, but I never know when I go to bed whether she is going to wake us all up with that blood-curdling scream. It's draining.

On a happier note, Dale and I are reading a fantastic book that should be purchased immediately and opened as soon as possible. It's called "Faith-Driven Family" by Voddie Baucham. The first page cuts to the chase and it's a motivating and inspiring journey all the way through. You want to know where things started to unravel and how to bring your corner of the world back to order? READ THIS BOOK! This guy is awesome; he's totally down to earth. He loves Jesus, he's a student of the Word, and he's leading the willing onto the path of righteous living. I have needed a jump start like this for a long time.

The fruit of this labor is already changing things in our home. I am awe-struck. It has forced us to take a good hard look at our lives and start to clear away some of the weeds, in an effort to allow what is fruitful to thrive. What a blessing.

Baking Soda

Every time I use baking soda to clean something, I make a mental note to post this little miracle of science on my blog. Have you ever used baking soda as a household cleaner? Today I took my dish drainer apart. It's white. It's ten years old. We live in California. The mineral deposits here are orange. OK? Orange. So every couple of weeks, the resting tray on my dish drainer has an orange hue. It sounds like it could be nice, but it's not nice. It's not nice at all! It's nasty. I took it apart to clean it, right, and there was a box of baking soda just like the one you're looking at right now sitting on the window ledge in front of me. I dumped a bunch of this powerful powder all over the tray and scrubbed it with a green scratch pad. Within a few minutes every stain was gone.

It works to clean all kinds of things. I use it to clean grease spots off my cookie sheets, burn spots off my pots, baked-on spills on my stove top, grass stains off white leather tennis shoes, stains on the tub, and mineral build up around the edges of my sink where the caulk has worn away. Oh yes, and my kids brush their teeth with it every couple of months per their fathers request.

Supposedly it works alongside peroxide to deodorize dogs after a skunk attack, but I did not find this to be true; nor tomato juice, nor tomatoes, nor special skunkbegone shampoo, nor any other miracle cure of any kind. We had to sit that one out, and sit we did. For four weeks of the pungent odor. Stings the nostrils!

Oh yeah, it also works cooking as a leavening agent in baked goods, but you already knew that, huh? Yep. It's an amazing product. And it's $.42 a box. Can't beat it.

HAAAAP-PY BIRTH-DAAAYY, AUNT APRIL!!! uh.. yesterday

I have this great sister-in-law.

You may remember meeting April earlier this summer. What you don't know about her is that she is one of the most selfless people I have ever met. There's nothing she wouldn't do for us. What's more, my kids call her, oh... if I had to guess I'd say three times a week, and talk to her for, oh... hours I'm sure. We have lots of videos that were made while I was at the grocery store, wherein she is present with the kids during the fliming of said videos via speakerphone. That always cracks me up. She's never too busy no matter what the antics are. I adore that about her; she's one of a kind. With this gal, what you see is what you get. She doesn't put on for anyone and you never have to wonder what she's thinking. She's the real deal and I adore her.

I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to celebrate with you on your real birthday, but the sentiment is the same. We love you so much and are really thankful that you belong to us!!!

TRY THIS!!!

A couple of things...

Today I made this delicious salad and I want you to try it.

-slice a cucumber and a red onion
-add a tablespoon of sugar, a tablespoon of cider vinegar, and a dash of salt

I made it right before we ate it, and it was fantastic. I'm sure it would be even better after about an hour in the fridge; I want to try it that way next time. Leila even liked it, she was sneaking cucumbers off my plate and eating them!

And the other thing. This week I cleaned out the girls' room. I took a push broom and swept piles out from under the beds, moved all the furniture, pulled everything out of the closets, and made a mountain of stuff outside the door. The hallway was knee-high with stuff from the back bathroom all the way to my bedroom door. Crrr-AAAAAA-XZZZyyyy! Yesterday I finally finished sorting the stuff, throwing away garbage, and dropped my burdens at Goodwill. I can't tell you what kind of relief I feel knowing that it's done.

We don't have a lot of space, so I am constantly brainstorming a way to give the girls their own area, being that there are three of them in one room. Last week, before the overhaul, I had a vision. We have two closets in the room that mostly work as dumping grounds for clothes, toys, and garbage. After I emptied the closets, I moved Kennedy's bed next to one, Jasmine's bed next to the other, and Leila's bed I moved into the corner. She has a trundle that fits under Kennedy's bed. Usually the floor is so cluttered that her bed only goes halfway in and halfway out. I always feel incredibly guilty when I get her bed made for her because she doesn't have any space that is hers. For now she doesn't mind because she's four, but in the next year she will change a lot, and I want her to feel like she has as much ownership in the bedroom as the other two girls do. That encourages her to take pride in the room and to keep her stuff picked up.

This set-up solves another regular problem in our house. One of my girls makes her bed every morning, and one of my girls stuffs trash in her pillowcase and under the sheet rather than walk across the hall to throw it away. The other one is Leila. Every couple of days we check out bedrooms to make sure they are tolerable, usually you cannot see the girls' floor, no matter how recently they cleaned it. This is frustrating for my neat-nic because she has to stay and supervise the cleaning of the room when she's done a little everyday to avoid having her stuff scattered all over the room. Now that they have their own space, each girl is responsible for her own area and no one gets blamed for a mess that she didn't make.

I remember how desperate I used to be for a place of my own when I shared a room with my sister. Sometimes I would stack all the pillows I could find in the closet and take little snacks and journals in there, determined to stay forever. There are times when I feel like that now my kids might tell Dale I'm hiding and eating snacks in the closet if I do. So instead I make myself a fancied-up coffee concoction and pretend like it is an escape. I'm thankful for our tight quarters, it has created an environment of gratitude in all of us. You'd have thought I gave those girls their own little houses. What a blessing.

Voddie Baucham

In my day, I don't spend a lot of time reading. I read my Bible in the beginning, I read my blog after I write it, I read the Drudge Report, and occasionally I read other people's blogs after I publish mine. Outside of my Bible study, there isn't a lot of intellectual stimulation in my day. This is frustrating for me because my thoughts consist of about 85% kid stuff, 10% stuff I see of TV and about 5% original thought promoted by intellect. I understand that my life is pretty ensconced in my circumstances being that I am a stay-at-home mom. However, I have a responsibility to trigger intellect in my children's thoughts. If I am not triggering my own, I find myself laughing at SpongeBob antics.

The other day Dale asked me if I ever read Voddie Baucham's blog, which I haven't for a very long time. Today I got on his website and uncovered a goldmine. There is so much here that I will keep myself busy for a very, very long time reading his thoughts and reading from the links he's posted on his blog. That is what I wanted to share with you.

Voddie Baucham in a nutshell is a pastor that *gets* God's purpose for family in the body of Christ and everything in his ministry stems from that one thing. He inspires me to greater excellence in everything that I do. Check him out at http://www.voddiebaucham.org/. Check out the LINKS link. I can't wait to spend some time on every one of these websites. LOVE IT!!!

More on Cooking Light

I was in the grocery store a couple of days ago buying Greek yogurt, Hoisin sauce, chives, basil, and Kalamata olives. The woman at the cash register asked me what I was making with all these ingredients. Caught off guard, I fumbled around for a second and then explained my new kick. I honestly didn't know what I was making until I got to the recipe and then I was sure to have the ingredients.

What is really great about Cooking Light is that if you are cooking on a regular basis, from a menu that doesn't consist of a lot of convenience foods, you will have a good majority of the ingredients that the recipes call for. I have had to stock some things, like the ones I mentioned, but I figure if I keep cooking like this, I'll have everything I need on hand.

One mistake I have made in the past is trying to substitute ingredients in order to save a trip to the grocery store. That has blown up in my face on more than one occasion. This time I decided I would pay for whatever I needed in exchange for re-establishing my reputation as a good cook.

It helps that my kids are adventurous eaters. I think they've learned that they would rather try it than starve. Last night I made these tostadas and they were awesome. The litmus on my cooking is always Dale, so I was very pleased when he said with a mouthful of food, "This is delicious!" It's worth the little bit of extra effort to win that affirmation.

I want to help if I can because I know a lot of my friends struggle with this very thing. It makes cooking a chore when you know it's not really appreciated. What I do is rip the page straight out of the magazine if I think the picture looks good or that it's something Dale would like. I make a menu and shopping list straight from the pages and then tape each page in order to the inside of the cabinet door above my ingredient pantry. It a little primitive, but it really works for me. Having the pictures and knowing the ingredients are ready and waiting to be used inspires me. After I prepare the meal, I mark on the page whether we liked it or not, and how it needs to be tweaked for the next time. Like I said, if you can't get the magazine, you can get all the recipes from cookinglight.com. I ordered the magazine from a kid working a fundraiser and got two years for $12 or something like that, so you may want to watch for travelling salesmen.

Another thing the women at the grocery store were saying was that they had purchased other books and magazines and the recipes were difficult to prepare or the food turned out badly. So far I have not had a single recipe that I wouldn't make again. If you need a push, email me and I'll send you a list of recipes to try. Now go and have a happy Friday, and be nice to your kids!!!

Date Night

Marriage is a funny thing. I have always been an optimist, not just your average run-of-the-mill optimist, but a polar optimist. As in, if pessimism is the south pole I'm on the flag pole of the north pole right at the top. You would think life and it's hard-knock blessings would force me to be cynical and thus lower my expectations, but I'm a die-hard. Don't get me wrong, I can be very cynical, but if you could look past the superficial feelings, you'd find the shining light of optimism brewing underneath.

This made our first year of marriage sort of a battle zone; Dale with his *hard dose of reality* hat and me fighting tooth and nail to hang on to my own belief that our marriage could be what I thought our marriage should look like was an explosive combination. Mad-dog tenacity doesn't give up easily, either. I've had to let go of a lot of my expectations over the years, but learning that lesson was one of the saving graces of my life. With that said, I still have not fully accepted it.

So last night, when Dale picked me up for our date, I was a little let down that he didn't comment on the way that I walked down the sidewalk to the car, or my new lipstick, or the dress that I fussed over for fifteen minutes before he arrived. I was moderately disappointed that when I asked him what he was thinking about, he said, "The car," and not "How amazing you are." But when I called the kids to make sure they found the brownies that I had stashed away and forgotten about, he took over the crisis on the other end of the phone while I ran in to get us a table at the restaurant. Before the waitress came we were looking over the menu and he asked if I wanted to split. A few times during our dinner, he started conversation out of the silence because we really enjoy talking to each other. Then when we were finished with dinner rather than toodle around town just to stay out, he said, "Let's go home and play cards." It's what we do every night.

What is striking to me about all of these things that mean so much to me about my husband is that my expectations are desperately shallow and vain in comparison to the riches of true companionship. I couldn't have dreamed up a better match for myself, I'm so glad God did!!!

Cooking Light

While all of us are unique, our personalities, our styles of running a household and raising kids, our neurosis, there are some universal issues that plague us all. One of those things is mealtime. In the hours I've spent whining about this issue, I've discovered that we are all in the same boat.

I love to cook, I really do! The problem is that I the food that I make to be the best of whatever my eaters have eaten. This poses a problem after I cycle through my short list of "big hits". That's when I revert to some old standards that they will eat, and are good for them, but no one really enjoys. I really dread that part of the cycle and it discourages meal planning.

I've been getting Cooking Light Magazine for months now and I always look through them for ideas, but until this week have never made anything from them. After a few sobering complaints about the menu, I sat down, ripped out enough recipes for a week, made a grocery list and stocked the fridge and cabinets.

This is less of a commitment than it used to be because I can buy produce for pennies on the dollar, which means if a recipe doesn't turn out, I haven't spent a fortune on ingredients.

I'm happy to announce that all of the recipes I've attempted have turned out. Finally I feel like I have turned a corner, for now at least. *Remember that part on Dirty Dancing when Baby is dancing with Johnny on stage and she forgets what she's supposed to do so she reverts back to the thumb thing? That happens to me occasionally after a big epiphany like this. Don't be judging me if I fall off.* I just want to share my enthusiasm. It inspires me.

The Middle Ones

Jasmine and Tre are in a combo class together at school. For the first day they were supposed to bring a picture of themselves so that they could do a self-portrait. Rather than scroll through the scads of photos on the computer, we just snapped a couple right there in the yard.


The thing about these two is that they are so drastically different from each other, but in some ways they are very alike. If I had to give my children degrees of difficulty as far as behaviors go, I say Tre ranks in the top and Jas ranks in the bottom. They are polar opposites. But if they are each others' only option for a play date, you can bet they will have a grand ol' time together. They are just like that. Both of them have incredible personalities and super dramatic temperaments. They're mine and I love them just the way they are.

Hey, Happy Labor Day everyone!!! Celebrate your labor with a hot dog and a smile!

The Little Girls

I have some work I should be doing right now, but I don't really want to get up and do them. I'm stalling. When I came across these pictures, I thought it necessary to post them because I have these kids that rob you of all capability to reason. Thought you could use a dose of LollylollylollyPOP!

She's funny, and wild, and manic, and has crazy hair, and despises washing her face. She only wears dresses if you want her to wear pants. She can light up a room in a minute. She's four and she's mine.

When God gave us Deisha, I was shocked. I was in shock for most of my pregnancy as well as a good bit of her first year. You can imagine my surprise when I snapped out of it and realized I had a 15-month-old.

She is busy all the time. If there is even a minuscule elevation anywhere in her sights, she will attempt to climb it.

She gets up at the crack of dawn. It used to be like a bad dream; she woke up and screamed a blood-curdling scream to announce the arrival of the sun. Now she will stand up in her bed and say, "Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Mom. Mom. Mom. Hi. Hi. Mom. Hi." It's precious but if I don't hurry to get her up, the screams follow pretty quickly.

She can destroy a room in fifteen seconds flat. Her new thing is to pull all of the clothes out of her drawers. This sweater has become a travelling security blanket. She wants to wear it day and night. If she can find it, she will follow me around holding it up to me until I put it on her. When we took this photo, she was wearing her day clothes underneath the sweater and the dress. I figured out shortly after I added the dress at her bidding that she was dressing herself to go outside. When I wouldn't open the front door for her, she went on a hunt for a shoe and went right back to the door. Someone needs to tell her mother that she is desperate for more sunlight in her life!

PS I love all my kids this much, I just have more pictures of these two because they are at my side all day every day. Why are you always judging me??? (Note: thick Spanish accent, hokhay???)

On a darker note...

Political correctness in America plunges to a new low.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article6822127.ece

First Day of School

In case you haven't heard, we decided to join a charter school that is just opening this year for the first time. A charter school is basically a school that is funded by the state and caters to children's needs in ways that a public school doesn't. This charter is a hybrid program that incorporates classroom learning using the classical method with home schooling. They attend school two days a week and study at home three days a week. It's the perfect compromise. I couldn't have written the program to more perfectly suit my own individual needs.

To the utmost delight of these children, the official school year has begun. They have backpacks, pencil boxes, lunch boxes and a truckload of enthusiasm! I thought it would be a scramble to get out the door on time, but everyone was awake by seven. Everyone was dressed and packed up to go out the door by seven-thirty. We didn't have to leave for another hour. It was a long and torturous wait.

Deisha shared in the enthusiasm because she is up before seven every morning with only me to keep her company; I am usually dozing off on the couch until the other kids start getting out of the bed.

They ended up having a fantastic first day of school. They did their first chemistry experiment, making bread dough, they did portraits of their classmates, they had a Spanish lesson, and they made friends. Every one of them made a handful of friends that they can't wait to get back to.

I feel this incredible indebtedness to the director, a mom with a mission. More than that, I feel like God has given my family this bountiful gift that will impact them for years to come. Thank you, God, for tending to the little things.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, (yesterday) MOM!!!

Hey, Pretty Lady, it's your birthday! Three cheers for one fantastic gal! Hip Hip Hooray! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! I hope you had a fantastic day. We love and miss you so, so much. May all your birthday wishes come true! xoxoxo

Happy Birthday (yesterday) LEILA!!!

My little bitty Lolly is four. It's the strangest thing. This year she not only recognized the significance of her birthday, she demanded that each of us tell her happy birthday at regular intervals throughout the day, which we did gladly because we love birthdays just about as much as we love anything.

She didn't expect much for her birthday because it's just not about all the bells and whistles, it's about being the center of attention for one day of the year. So we invited every member of our household to the party.

Of course, there were presents which she opened with in a whirlwind. **Thank you to all of our loving family members that sent boxes full of wonderful treasures for Leila and the rest of us. I'm getting soft in my thirties; I let her open the boxes the minute they came through the door. If you have an aversion to that, just write it on the box, and I will be happy to oblige. xoxo

We baked a cake and decorated it together. Most of the members of my family request a chocolate cake for their birthdays, but not Leila. She wanted a white cake with yellow and pink frosting. I loved decorating this cake, except that it was especially hot in my house and the frosting was not as stiff as I would have liked it to be. Because I am a little bit ghetto and don't like to clean out my pastry bag, I used sandwich bags instead and close to the end of my decorating, the tip on each color burst out of the hole in the corner of the bag along with a big blob of frosting. It was a good thing because when I set the cake in the fridge, the sriracha bottle fell and messed up another side of the cake. Because of the former disaster, I didn't cry over the later. Nor did I fuss when Leila put Eeyore on backwards or when Pooh bear rolled of the side three times. It was still yummy. I wish I would have cut myself half a piece though, after I figured up the calorie content of a piece of white cake with frosting. Then it wouldn't have mattered that I ate half of Leila's too.

We also had ice cream. Dale thought this was a detail important enough to chronicle with a photograph.

And we had Great Value Flavored Marshmallows too. I always thought that you spelled marshmallow with an e; M-A-R-S-H-M-E-L-L-O-W. Guess not. See? I never would have known if not for Dale's keen eye for the important things in life.

She loved every minute of this day, except for the hours following what would normally have been her bedtime when she was flying from hysteria to hysteria; laughing to crying. What can I say, she's my kid.