Just when I think I'm doing pretty good at keeping up with the trends, I've been out trended already!! I LOVE my Crop-A-Dile, which Mark, my ever witty husband, quickly renamed the Scrap Zilla. It is a tool I simply feel I could not live without being the scrapper/card maker I am. But, here it is, the newest thing – THE CROP A DILE II – THE BIG BITE! Oh man, what will Mark nickname this one? Can't wait to show him, hahaha. And now I just have to decide how quickly I can get one!!!
| Drag myself out of bed while at the same time figuring out which baby to take care of first, this is based on who is crying the loudest or whoever smiles at me first, hahaha. | |
6:45 | Stand out in the frigid cold in my pajamas, coat & big pink soft slipper boots & wait for the bus to come at 6:45, which it never does, it comes more like 6:57, so we've been standing out there in the cold all that time. | |
7:00 | Try to get the babies to go back to sleep only for it not to work or only to work for one baby, so I put on my workout clothes & take the other baby with me downstairs | |
7:30 | Start my workout & try to push myself through the entire thing, thinking the whole time, my hubby would be so proud of me!! | |
8:00 | Drag myself into the shower to wash the stink off & think about how great it is that after 8 years of child rearing I am finally back to taking a shower once a day. Oh how good it feels. | |
8:15 | Put on actual clothes & not anything that resembles pajamas, then take the time to fix my hair & put on makeup. This is such an essential part of my day whether or not I plan on going anywhere. I must feel good about myself & it helps me to get more motivated to get things done too. | |
8:45 | Computer time. It's like therapy. I can't start my day without this either. | |
10:00 | Check with Isabelle to make sure she has gotten everything she needs to start her morning, which she has because she no longer needs my help she informs me because she is now 5 years old. Well, eeeexxxcccuuusseeeee me. | |
10:00 | Start on my daily chore list which I love having. Because you know as a woman you so often start in one room & then find something that belongs in another room & you start cleaning in that room & then go to another room & then forget where you were at or where you're going next. That's why I love my daily cleaning list. | |
Oh yeah & during this time I'm switching back & forth between taking care of babies & doing housework, because come on, get real, they're twins, they're babies & they know NOTHING about how important keeping to a schedule is. | ||
11:00 | Take a break, probably some more computer time or fun time with the babies who probably have not gone back to sleep by now & just want me to sit around all day & smile & coo at them. I need an animated Mommy doll to do this job for me. | |
11:30 | Have lunch or something resembling a lunch. | |
12:00 | Back to work or personal time, whatever I feel at the moment because sometimes you want to work & sometimes you want to play. | |
1:00 | Do something structured with Isabelle who by now has probably spent her morning watching TV. She's a couch potato, which I hate to admit but the girl loves her cartoons. So, I have to do the right thing as her mother & care about her well being, so we do some preschool. | |
2:00 | We've barely survived the hour of preschool together because she is such an unusual child when it comes to learning, but when I look back on it I can only laugh. | |
2:30 | Mentally prepare myself for my oldest two to get home from school. It's like opening the pen to a herd of bulls at a rodeo when they come home. | |
3:00 | Free time for Mom in some respect, like I mentioned before sometimes this means just taking care of babies or just loving on them because that's become a new hobby. | |
4:00 | Remind kids about homework. Help Isabelle with a workbook. Mark thinks she's going to be so behind in school because she didn't get formal preschool, so we're cramming in all we can or at least all I can handle, hahaha. | |
4:30 | Start dinner or at least prep it & prepare myself for a meal worthy of the trash can but not really for eating. I just don't have cooking skills & this is something I have come to terms with, but my poor husband might start crying pretty soon if I don't figure out how to make some improvements. It wasn't always this way & I have no idea what happened. | |
5:00 | Help kids start their chores. This cracks me up because they do a really good job sticking to their chore charts, but when you look at the job they do on things, it's really pointless because when they're at school the next day I have to go in & clean over it or redo it, but I would never let them see this. Whether or not they can clean as good as the job requires, they need to think they are contributing to the family & what it takes to run a house this size, so they will continue to do chores even if it is a waste of cleaning wipes or I have to redo it when they're not looking. It's all a process in learning the skills of life, right?? | |
5:30 | Dinner. I love dinnertime. Sometimes it can be difficult I will admit. Sometimes my kids act like monkeys on crack, but other times we have such enjoyable conversation at the dinner table & my kids are so used to sitting down to eat as a family that if we don't sit down in a formal setting they think it's not really dinner. It's just something to eat & later on they'll be asking for dinner. | |
6:30 | Clean up after dinner. Finish up chores I didn't get to during the day. Now, please don't think I have forgotten about the babies, but basically they just have to blend in to the schedule I keep. I put them in the carrier or sling if I have to during all of this just to keep it all flowing. | |
7:30 | Help the kids get ready for bed. | |
8:00 | Kids in bed. Breathe a huge sigh of relief because for the first time all day the house is actually calm. Now I can enjoy some time with my hubby or do something for myself. | |
10:00 | Off to bed. To start again tomorrow. |
Here I am complaining to my friend Sybil that I cannot stand how stores put holiday stuff out soooooooooo way before the holiday is ever going to come, because then by the time I am ready to buy my stuff, all the good stuff is gone because people already bought it all 3 months before the holiday showed its face, so here I am stuck with all the crap. So, I'm taking down my Valentine's decorations this past week, wishing I had more St. Patrick's Day decorations but I don't, so the next holiday is Easter & I have some AWESOME Easter decorations, but it's WAY TOO EARLY to put up Easter I say to myself. BUT NO! To my great surprise, Easter is March 23rd this year! MARCH 23rd!! Are you kidding me? I thought Easter was always in April?!?!? Well, lo & behold, maybe this year we'll get more than just crap for Easter!! And yes, I will be putting up my Easter decorations right away!
I may have had some pretty disastrous dinner attempts lately, but one thing I know for sure...I can make a funnel cake. And I only realized this just a couple of nights ago, so I'm considering a "carny" profession as a funnel cake maker. Because you know they charge a fortune for those things & they're just batter & oil & some powdered sugar. And if I strap the babies to me & let the other three run circles around me, never brush our teeth or hair again & only eat funnel cakes morning, noon & night, then just maybe the traveling circus will pick us up & I can finally make a living creating funnel cake masterpieces & charging $5.00 a pop! They'll come in droves I tell ya! These things are sinfully good & they'll feel sorry for me because I have so many dirty little scoundrels in my pack & they'll pay the $5.00 in hopes that one day we'll find a better life, but I tell ya, what could be better than makin' & eatin' funnel cakes?
Mark recently purchased a gun. When the gun salesman asked him what he wanted the gun for, he replied, "Range shooting, home protection if needed." Jokingly, Mark had said during our 72 hour kit list breakdown, that if we had our stuff together & the next Joe Schmo didn't, then we might want that gun to protect what's ours. At the time, it seemed kind of comical, standing over our little 72 hour kit with our MRE's, fire extinguisher, packets of ketchup & hand wipes with a gun to protect what others may not have prepared. But, then I realized that having a gun in our lives was a major step & I wasn't sure I was ready. There was the discussion, 'Maria, you need to learn to use it & care for it,' along with 'Maria, we need to decide whether or not to let the kids know we have one,' and 'Maria, I am a combat soldier, this is part of who I am.' All of these topics pierced a part of me I had not even thought about before. But, I will say this….if anyone was going to purchase a gun, keep it in our home & show me how to use it, I would want it to be my husband, who for over 7 years has been trained, re-trained & trained some more on how to use guns, clean guns, care for guns & BE SAFE WITH GUNS. And I trust him with my life, our lives. So, I listened, I learned & I shot the gun, but it didn't make it any easier to handle. Mark was understanding given the fact we have led very different lives when apart, but was glad I was willing to learn. So, here are a few photos just because I'm that crazy of a scrapper & will make a scrapbook page of all this.
These were Mark's shots, certainly not mine, hahah. I think I hit the target once out of like 6 shots.
For those of you that have Microsoft Office 2007, there is a whole new aspect of blogging that my husband brought to my attention last night. I was GIDDY with GLEE. I was HOPPIN' with HAPPINESS. I was…..okay, you get the point. Anyway, there is a way you can publish to your blog right from Microsoft Word. I don't even have to go through Blogger to do a post. I register my account through Microsoft Word & it does all the work for me, okay, it doesn't type the post for me, which would be really nice, but it posts it for me in whatever format I choose & gathering that we're all a bit more familiar with Word than we are with HTML, I can change fonts, change colors, paste tables, whatever into Word & it will post it for me just like I see it when I create it. SIMPLY AMAZING!
6:00 | Wake up kids |
6:15 | Feed babies |
6:45 | Kids on bus |
7:00 | Get babies back to sleep |
7:30 | Workout downstairs |
8:00 | Freshen up/Get dressed |
8:30 | Do e-mail/Get Isabelle breakfast |
9:00 | Babies |
9:30 | Get babies back to sleep/Help Isabelle with activity |
10:00 | Start housework |
10:30 | Get Isabelle snack |
10:45 | Finish up housework |
12:00 | Make lunch |
12:30 | Eat lunch/Babies |
1:00 | Preschool with Isabelle |
2:30 | Make snack for Mav & Noah/Pick up for Isabelle |
3:00 | Babies |
3:30 | Freetime for Mom |
4:00 | Workbook time for Isabelle |
4:15 | Freetime for Mom |
5:00 | Help kids get started on chores |
5:30 | Start dinner |
6:00 | Dinner/Babies |
6:30 | Babies |
7:00 | Quick pick up with kids |
7:15 | Get kids ready for bed |
8:00 | Kids in bed |
8:30 | Freetime |
9:00 | Get babies in bed |
9:30 | Freetime |
