Wednesday, January 14, 2015

A Walking Advertisement

There is a dating website that advertises on t.v. here called www.farmersonly.com.  It's basically exactly what it sounds like.  It's only for farmers, and allows single farmers to meet each other for dating purposes.  I have no idea what the population of farmers is in Colorado, or how many people are actual members of this site, but they advertise, a lot, and for some reason on one or more channels that the kids watch.

The other day Amanda and I were standing in line at a busy store and all of a sudden she belts out, "You don't have to be lonely, at farmers only dot com."  I just looked at her, dumbfounded, and asked if she she was singing the song to Farmers Only.  She smiled and said yes, as if it was the most popular song on the radio.

I kind of forgot about it until that night Charlie and I were watching t.v. and that commercial came on.  I started laughing and telling Charlie about Amanda singing in the store.  It still makes me smile just thinking about it.  I'm so glad I get to spend so much time with that girl, she just cracks me up.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Quotables

For some reason Amanda loves to quote movies.  If she could talk to you all day long in movie quotes, she would.  Every once in a while she'll say something totally brilliant or advanced for her age and Charlie will look at me like "wow, look how smart she is" and I'll just roll my eyes (to myself of course) and inform him that it's from some random movie that he hasn't been forced to listen to 800 times in the car while driving to and fro (those are places, not people) so it's not on the top of his head.

So today the girls were sitting on the couch playing Minecraft together on separate iPads (don't ask me how they do it, they just do...now I'm starting to sound like my mother) and they were arguing as they have been doing a lot lately.  I don't remember the exact conversation and who was AM TOOing or AM NOTing, but all of a sudden Amanda says, "Well, if the boot fits!".  She did actually use it correctly in their little tiff but I found it funny that she chose to quote Woody from Toy Story II.

I guess when you mostly watch Disney movies your choices are limited.  The day she says "It's all ball bearings" or "put it on the Underhills tab" I will be so proud.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Making Room

Around this time every year I get the itch to purge everything we own and clean up.  Sometimes I just have that feeling, other times I actually act upon it.  There are things that I always say I'm going to do, but don't often, and then there are times when I am so focused it's scary.  This year appears to be one of those focused years.

So I've been to Target several times this week to buy containers and book shelves and then to Home Depot to buy more shelves for some of our cupboards that are huge but don't have a shelf in them.  Tomorrow I am going to sit down with the girls and go through their books to determine which ones they want to keep and which they want to find new homes for, and then also make space on the shelves for some of their toys.  I think I am also going to get a soft sided toy box thing for Amanda to put her dress up clothes in because asking her to actually put them back in the closet on a hanger has been a problem.  The girls think that everything should just be dumped on the floor, and this includes their princess dresses.

I know tomorrow's activities are going to cause stress for all of us.  They are going to hate it, I am going to hate it, Charlie is going to hate listening to all of us hate it - it's going to be a nightmare.  However, when it's over I hope to have created a little haven in each girl's room where they actually have a space to put their toys that they helped create and are proud of.  Likely story, but we'll see.

As for the purging, while they are at school I need to take a garbage bag to their rooms and start throwing out all the tiny little useless things they get at birthday parties and school that they thought were so amazing for the first five minutes they owned them and now haven't touched for months or years.  Sarah has so much stuff in bags on her dressers it is crazy.  Of course if I dumped out those bags in front of them they would immediately start playing with all that crap and never let me throw it away, hence why I am doing it while they are at school.  Bwahahaha!

As for the rest of the house I already started putting in the new shelves, but I ran out of nails today and the shelves were about a 1/4 inch too wide so tomorrow it's back to Home Depot.  I will be so happy when this is done because it will mean more things that can be put away instead of on the counter so we aren't embarrassed to have people over and we don't look like hoarders.  I am not kidding.

The last place we need to fix is the office, which hopefully will be partially solved with a trip to IKEA.  Charlie and I aren't huge IKEA fans, but they do have some great stuff when the time is right.  Hopefully in the near future I can post some before and after pictures of the office.

Here's hoping tomorrow's renovations are a huge success.  Or at least we don't kill each other!

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Mini Milestones

Everybody likes to keep track of their kids' milestones, but it's usually only the minor ones.  You know, first time they rolled over, sat up, walked, talked, or lost a tooth.  But there are so many others that they hit that just pass by and you don't even think about it until it's gone.  Like, when exactly did she start (or stop) doing that?  It seems like we've made it through a lot of them lately, most of which make my life much easier.

For example, most people know around the time their kid starts to potty train, but do you really keep track of the last time said child asked you to wipe their butt?  You don't write it down, but all of a sudden you go, "Hey!  I'm not wiping anybody's butt anymore!".  I wiped someone's (other than myself) behind for over 11 years and it feels amazing to not have to do that anymore.

Or, how many times has my toddler asked me to pick him/her up to get a drink from the drinking fountain while I have several shopping bags and my purse in hand?  Well, I am happy to say that now all three of my kids are tall enough to drink from the water fountain.  No more balancing a 40 pound kid on my hip so she can spill water all down her front and not get a drink.

Same goes for washing hands.  Although I still have to do this with Amanda at a lot of places, it is so nice when she is tall enough and can reach the sink and soap by herself.  I will tell you there are a lot of places where they put the soap ridiculously high.  As a result I wash my hand and dry them before she comes out of the stall and then have to get them wet again to help splash water on her hands and/or hand her soap.  I can't wait for this one to pass.

There are some things I will be sad about, like when they no longer ask to sit on my lap at dinnertime (even though it drives me crazy now I know I will miss it), but those three above I am happy to live without.  I'm sure there are more, but I won't really figure them out until we're doing something and I realize I don't have to do it for them anymore.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

A New Resolution...Sort Of

My friend, April from New Jersey, made a New Year's Resolution of sorts that she was going to try to post on her blog everyday in 2015.  That is quite a feat.  If I said I would post once a week I would be better than I've been in the last few months.  I couldn't believe when I logged in today that I haven't written a word since December 22.  That is pathetic.

I don't really believe in New Year's Resolutions.  I don't think you should wait until the new year to change horrible habits, I think when you realize that you are headed in the wrong direction you should just fix it then, not wait until a specific, magical day.  Of course I am not and have not been a fan of New Year's in a very long time, so it makes sense (at least to me).  However, every day when I read April's post, which is amazing by the way, I feel a bit sad and guilty that I have been such a slacker.  So I am going to use her posts to motivate me to write more of my own, since I will be getting a daily (or close to) reminder.  All I have to do is hit the computer right after I put the kids to bed at night, right?  Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

So to catch you up on our crazy lives, I did survive the flu and finally felt better by Christmas Day.  Charlie helped a ton and totally picked up the slack but I was completely run down for at least a week.  Thankfully nobody else got it.  We had a nice, quiet Christmas at our house and then flew to my parent's house on the 26th for a much louder, bigger Christmas with the extended family.  A few people were sadly missed due to the flu hitting their house a little later than ours, but overall it was a very relaxing trip and I got to catch up with friends and family that I do not get to see enough.

We got home late on New Year's Eve and put the kids to bed right before midnight (they didn't want to stay up and were satisfied that they made it to midnight on the east coast) and then watched the ball re-drop in New York.  They do it really weird here.  They show you the ball dropping at midnight in New York, even though Times Square is long cleared out, and it even says LIVE on the top of the screen which you know it is not.  We don't really care, but it's weird.  Right April?

It was ridiculously cold while we were out of town, like -30 degrees with the wind chill, but got a little warmer after we returned, like 10 degrees, so we didn't go out much.  In fact, they girls stayed in their pajamas from Thursday to Sunday, only changing every few days into different pajamas.  You would think after all five of us being in the house together for that many days that we would have all been going stir crazy, but there was a combination of new toys, new movies and new video games (or new to me video games) that kept everybody happy until they had to go back to school on Monday.  I'm going to whisper this so it doesn't come back to haunt me, but it was probably one of the most pleasurable breaks we've ever had.

Now everybody is back to school, Charlie is back to work and I'm back to the gym.  Life is balanced and our schedule, which I would not have lasted much longer without, is restored.  The Christmas tree and decorations are packed away (except for the outdoor lights that had too much snow on them to take down) and the house is back in order.  Except for the girls' rooms which we are going to be doing a small amount of redecorating and moving things around so they have a little more space for toys in their rooms.  Next week if I find some time I am going to stealthily go through their rooms with a large garbage bag and get rid of a ton of things they don't even know they have.  That's one thing the new year always brings, a need to declutter and purge.

Hopefully, thanks to April's attempt to pick up her own slack, you will hear more from me and with greater frequency.  These kids are pretty funny, sometimes life passes me by so quickly I just don't have time to write it down.

Monday, December 22, 2014

Sick House

This last month has been a blur.  I cannot believe that I haven't written anything, but then again I totally can.  For one thing, the kids have been generally well-behaved, so there aren't any good stories of their crazy, outlandish behavior.  For another thing, December is crazy in a household of five people.  We have a ton of activities which means a lot of people to shop and buy for at the holidays.

Things were going pretty well up until last week.  Charlie left on Sunday for his last business trip of the year, unfortunately this one was a doozy and he was off to Europe for the week.  Sounds glamorous, but going to London, Paris and Frankfurt in a four day span for meetings is not that fun.  As soon as he walked out the door I told the kids they could stay in their pajamas and do whatever they wanted that day because I had baking to do.  Every year I bake cookies or something for the teachers and neighbors and this year was no exception.  So the kids happily kept themselves busy and I made four batches of cookies (that's about 16 dozen).  I took a break to give the girls a bath and feed the kids dinner and put them to bed, and then dipped Oreos, pretzel sticks, rice krispie treats and s'mores on a stick (three marshmallows on a stick dipped in chocolate, rolled in graham cracker crust and drizzled with more chocolate which if put in the microwave for 5-10 seconds tastes just like a s'more) in dark chocolate.  That was enough for Sunday.

Monday I dipped in white chocolate and made some yummy holiday popcorn for the neighbors.  You get the idea, this continued the rest of the week.  Running around like crazy during the day, Amanda's holiday concert on Monday, Sarah singing at assisted living facilities with the Girl Scouts on Tuesday.  On Tuesday afternoon I took Andy to the doctor because I thought he had strep.  He was run down, but no fever, and had a sore throat and a slight rash on his chest, which has proven to be strep in the past.  He tested negative for strep so they declared it Fifth's Disease and said he could go back to school and would feel better within a few days.  Thursday morning they called to tell me it was a false negative (see, Mom knows!) and he had tested positive in further testing and he needed to come home immediately because he was contagious.  Um, he's been contagious all week, what's a few more hours?  Friday I woke up with a horrible sore throat and thought I was coming down with strep, but after a two hour trip to the Walgreen's Clinic found out I had the flu.  Yes, we all had flu shots in October but by now you've probably heard that this year's flu vaccine was not very effective.  I started Tamiflu on Friday and Charlie took the kids to get it for the rest of the family on Saturday.  So far nobody else has gotten it and we will hopefully be perfectly healthy to travel on Friday to visit my family for the holidays.

So I thought I was doing pretty well having my husband out of the country the busiest week of the year and taking care of all their activities and all the gifts and at the end I just petered out.  Thankfully everything got done and handed out before I was incapacitated.  Kind of like when you go and go and go in college and then as soon as finals are over you get crazy sick because your body can't take it anymore.  Luckily because I did get the flu shot I don't think I got it as badly as some people.  I'm on day four and am still run down but otherwise most of my symptoms are gone.  I'm hoping to enter society again tomorrow, taking Andy to a doctor appointment and getting one more last minute gift for Charlie.  We'll see if that really happens.

As of now, everyone is on Tamiflu and Andy is also on an antibiotic, but we're alive and well and looking forward to the holidays.  If only I have time to finish wrapping all the presents.  Thankfully this year my need to shop ridiculously early paid off and all of my shopping is basically done.  We got some snow last night and so it's really starting to feel like Christmas!

Monday, December 1, 2014

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

I'm a little in shock that it's December 1st.  Yes, I've been buying Christmas/Hanukkah presents since August (hey, when you see something you have to buy it because you may not be able to find it later), but December still snuck up on me.  Maybe it was because I was out for a week or so due to my surgery, I'm not really sure.  All I do know is that when I realized that the Monday after Thanksgiving was December 1st I had a little panic attack and now it's here.

I'm not sure why I'm so worried.  It's not that I'm not ready, it's just that everything is happening so fast.  I'm pretty sure I have all the gifts for the kids' teachers already, and I am quite possibly done shopping for the kids as well (I have to take inventory, there are gifts hidden everywhere and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to find them all), and I bought my Christmas cards in September (seriously, if you already have the picture you KNOW you are going to use and the card place is having a 55% off sale, why wouldn't you buy them early?), so there is very little need for pre-holiday stress.

We came home from a fantastic week in Florida for Thanksgiving.  We did something new this year and spent the weekend before Thanksgiving with our friends Hugo and Nicole and their girls at a fantastic resort about 40 minutes from St. Augustine.  Unfortunately we may have gone a little too far north because they got a cold spell that weekend and it was really cold.  It didn't stop the kids from swimming in the lazy river and the unheated pools, but luckily there was a rather large hot tub swimming pool where they stayed warm.  On Monday we headed down to Miami and spent five days with Charlie's family where his mom spoiled us with fantastic cooking and lots of candy and sugar cereal for the kids.  They were in heaven.  We left early Saturday morning which resulted in a very sleepy, lazy day on Saturday but also a chance to get our Christmas lights, trees and decorations up in time for December. Last year we didn't even put up the lights because the first half of December was so cold and by the time it wasn't too cold it wasn't worth it anymore.

So we are raring to go and I just have to get organized, which contrary to what my mother thinks is not my strong point lately.  I have gotten on the lazy train and am not trying too hard to get off.  Hence the reason I'm on it in the first place.

However, Christmas and Hanukkah are going to come regardless of whether or not I'm ready, so I choose to get ready.  Thank God none of my kids are snoopers because my closet is filled with gifts (so full that you can't see the floor) that are very poorly hidden (like not at all) and barely in bags and the door is wide open because there is too much junk in front of it to close it.  Those are the items that do not come from the big, fat, jolly man.  I am a little better at hiding those.

Three more weeks of school and organized life and then chaos and mayhem ensue.  I can get it together by then, really I can.