And Another Thing...

Snippets from our day

This morning:

Ben - Grandma was here!

Me - Yeah (?)

Ben - I knew she was here because Cattie smells like Grandma.

 

This afternoon:

Olivia - Why didn't you name me Caroline?!?! (imagine a very dramatic, exasperated voice)

 

This evening: 

Saragh - This will be your 26th anniversary?

Me - No, this will be our 10th anniversary

Saragh - That's 3 and 7, right?

Me - Ummm...  (she's five and we've never done math)

 

And a bonus:

We hear Saragh run outside and a few mintues later, the doorbell rings.  When Oliver goes to see whose there, he finds Saragh hiding under a box giggling.  Yeah, she's awesome :o)

Please don't wash your own plate...

So, the other night, the boys had a friend spend the night.  They had pizza, watched movies, played video games, you know, the whole teenage boy shebang.  After they got done eating, the friend brought his plate to me to ask what he should do with it.  I tols him to just put it in the sink and I would take care of it later when I loaded the dishwasher.  He informed me that he had already washed it.  This took me completely by surprise and it really annoyed me.  Now, I know that I should have been grateful that the boy had such good manners, but I really do not consider it good manners, and I'll tell you why.  

First, when you are a guest in someone's home, especially a first time guest, you don't know what the rules and routines are and you shouldn't assume that you do.  Now, in his home, it may have been the rule that you wash your own plate, but it is not here.  Good manners dictate that you ask what the procedures are before you act.  

Second, both of my boys had put their plates in the sink (as had Oliver and I), as per the routine of our house.  I found it to be quite presumptuous and a little up-staging-ish for this boy to wash his plate when he could clearly see that the rest of us had put our plates in the sink.  I might not have thought that if he hadn't also done similar things throughout the evening.  Like when the boys burst out of the house and bellowed that they were going off to a bike ride to the jumps and the friend turned to me and said, "I guess the plan is that we're going on a bike ride, is that okay with you?"  This was after I had already bellowed "Whatever, dude!" back to the boys (which is code in our house for, "Sure, that's great, don't kill yourselves because I don't have time for the drama!").  I just found it a little irksome.

Third, I now have this compulsion to make the boys wash their own dishes whenever they are at someone else's house.  I hate that this has me second guessing myself, even if it is just a tweeny-tiny bit.  Now, this is totally my problem and I own it, but it still pisses me off a bit.  I normally have great confidence in my children's social graces.  Most of the time, I feel quite at ease sending them off to a friend's house because we have made manners and  niceties a priority so that they do not offend people.  But now there is a little eensy part of me that thinks maybe I haven't been quite diligent enough.  Should they be washing their own dishes at other people's houses???  

Yes.  This is when the crazy starts to come out.  You'll have to excuse me now, I have to go shove it back in.

Whew! What a great weekend!

This weekend was a whirlwind of activity.  On Friday, we went to our orthodontist's annual ics skating party.  I didn't get any pictures of this, I was way too busy eating pizza, pigging out at the chocolate fountain and ice skating with the kiddos to photograph anything.  Suffice it to say, it rocked!

When we got home, we had to bathe the girls and get them into bed so we could all get up early for Olivia's First Communion!  But first, I put Olivia's hair up in rag curlers.  It was so much fun and she looked so cute!

So when I was done, I shooed her off to bed and finished getting the house ready.  Then we were up early and bustin' our butts to get out the door on time for Olivia's mass.

Ben and Braidon served this mass so I thought I'd include ths shot of them and our beautiful church. 

Olivia in the dress my mom made for her, the sweater I knit for her and my own First Communion viel re-made to be a little more modern.

Olivia with my dad, because my dad made his First Communion this spring too!   After 40 some odd years, he finally relented and became a Catholic.  Olivia actually made her first communion at the Easter vigil with my dad.  This is technically her second communion.

Olivia with Grandma and Grandpa.

Olivia with Grammy and Papaw.

Olivia with Mama and Daddy.

It was a great mass,  Olivia got to read the second reading and enjoyed spending the morning in the limelight for her special event.   It's not very often in our house that you get a whole day just for you!  After mass, we went home and started getting ready for the party, of which I have no pictures beacause I have apparently taken leave of my senses.  I don't know what's wrong with me, people...

On Sunday, we got up and a bee-yutiful morning!  Oliver's parents stayed the night, so Oliver made french toast for everyone to selebrate Mother's Day.  It's super yummy french toast, and uf you ever spend the night at our house, chances are, you'll wake up in the morning to find Oliver in the kitchen, frying up a batch.  Yes, he deep fries his french toast.  Yum-o!

Then we spent the morning outside chatting with Oliver's parents and generally enjoying the first really fabulous day we've had this spring.

Good times :o)

Oh for the love of all that paintable...

Last week, Oliver was on "vacation".  I'm only using that word in the technical sense, because his time off work was anything but relaxing.  For either of us.  We have several events this month that will bring guests into our home and like good procrastinators, we took the opportunity to get some projects done. 

• Paint family room and set it up as the TV room.
• Paint the front entry and stairs
• Install new doors - downstairs bathroom, basement stairs, and family room
• finish up kitchen work

75% of this list has ben accomplished.  Oliver still needs to get the kitche finished up, which really means that he needs to get the wall trim installed.  Hopefully he'll get to this part this week, but if not, no biggie.

The first thing we did was paint the family room (which has also been called the fireplace room in the past).  We went with a really bold orange/poppy color and I'm still getting used to it.  I only got around to hanging a few things today, so no pictures of that room yet, but it's nearly there!

It took most of the week because we had to paint in stages (our TV is mounted on the wall, so he had to paint the new wall, move the TV, patch the old holes and then we could paint the rest of the room) and he also had to manufacture and install new transition strips for the laminate flooring and doorways.

On Friday, we bit the bullet and painted the front entry and stairway.  Since this required Oliver to build a contraption to hold his r e a l l y tall ladder and then climb up to the top of that ladder to do the cut in work, we've been putting off this project for nearly 5 years. It really wasn't that bad and didn't take very long.  We chose a color called Forsythia Blossom and I LOVE it!  It's so bright and cheerful now!  I hung pictures this afternoon, so I do have a picture of this project.

A view of the new paint color and the beginnings of my stairway photo collage.  I love the way this is turning out!

This is a crewell project my grandmother did many years ago.  The colors are perfect for this space!

Here are the new doors!  Our old doors were falling apart and ugly, so when Oliver found a super good deal at Menards, he jumped on it.  We wanted to install a door at the family room so that when the boys have friends over, they can hole up in there and not bother anyone else with their video games and general teenage boy rudeness.  

So, that's what's been going here lately.  I'll get pictures of the family room soon!

Olivia's Room

We've been working on redecoratin Olivia's room for far too long now.  It was all supposed to be done over Christmas break, but as you can see, we're hopeless procrastinators.  We finally made some huge progress this weekend and I thought I'd share what we've been up to.

Oliver built a dollhouse bookcase for Olivia and I got to finish it today.

Here is the "before" picture.  I atcually liked the way it looked unfinished, but Oliver said he didn't make it to be unfinished so I had to paint it.

I painted the roof with brown chalkboard paint so Olivia can use it as a drawing surface.  I painted the body of the bookcase with white kid proof paint so hopefully it will be easy to keep clean.  Olivia and I took a trip to Joann this morning and picked out cute fabric that has the feel of vintage wallpaper.  We hot glued this to the back board of the bookcase.  We also picked up some pre-painted wooden flowers and a butterfly and used them to make a little yard scene on the side that will be visible.  So much cuter than plain white!

Here it is all installed in her room!  I love this so much!  It came out exactly as I had envisioned it and I LOVE the fabric.  If I had seen this when I was shopping for fbric, I would have made a duvet cover for her out of it. 

This is a banner I made for her a few weeks ago.  I had to wait until the new bookcase was installed becasue the old one was too tall.  It was totally worth the wait and it is lovely in her room.

So, there are a few more things to do.  I have to finish her quilt.  HAVE TO!!!  It's been sitting since before Christmas and I'm starting to feel terribly guilty about it.  I was going to have a friend quilt it for me, but I think now I will just tie it and then figure out some sort of binding for it.  I really need to get it done so keep on me about it!  I also need to put her valance together.  I'm just going to tie ribbons in various colors and patterns on a dowel and hang it.  It really just needs to cover the top of the ugle blinds so you can't see them during the day.  Oh!  We also hung her pink lights today.  She is DYING to go to bed so she can turn them on.  Hopefully Oliver will get some shelve thrown together for her closet soon so that we can get the dresser out and give her a nightstand.  Her room is really tiny and the less furniture the better, especially since we put the full size bed in there. 

I think that's it for Olivia's room!  If I can get my stuff together, I'll put up a post about the upstairs hallway (we painted it a deep, bright blue yesterday and it is quite dramatic!).

At the hospital...

Anna is settling down for an overnight hospital stay after having her tonsils and adenoids out.  Surprisingly, we have gotten very mixed reactions about our three daughters having this procedure done.  In their cases, it was due to sleep apnea which was the result of extremely large adenoids.  I mean, really ridiculously large.  They snored, they stopped breathing many times each night, they truly did need to have this procedure.  But still, we took quite a bit of flack for it. 

Now, I know there are so many parents out there who insist on subjecting their kids to unecessary medical treatments, but we are so far from that.  I am an antibiotic nazi, rarely giving my permission to have any prescribed.  We are very selective and careful about vaccines, preferring to boost our kids immune systems and keep a watchful eye on thier health.  I don't freely give them pain or fever reducing medication, relying instead on homeopathic treaments and letting fevers run their couse. 

So why, when we choose what we believe is a potential life saving procedure, do we get attacked?  Do my mindful and carefully chosen health precautions count for nothing?  Does it appear that we gave this no thought and jumped headlong into it?  I'm baffled by the reaction to this.

Not that everyone feels the same way.  We have plenty of supporters who know that we make only the best available decisions for our kids. They know that the terrifying knowledge of a child not breathing may times throughout the night more than makes up for any risks involved.  It is understood that we will all sleep better once we get home and recovery really starts. 

So thank you supporters, for being there for us and loving us through this.  Anna appreciates your concern and we know your love and support will help her on her road to recovery.  And to those who are negative about our decision, you can still choose to love and support Anna, even if you don't agree with her parents.

Christmas at the Nut House

An awesome kid potrait session on Christmas Eve. 

Stockings hung by the chimney with care...

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

Our beautiful Christmas Tree.  I LOVE this picture!

Excitment over the Santa gifts.

Santa brought Braidon a new sled!  It was all we could do to keep him inside for the rest of the gift opening!

Benjamin was so surprised with his new toothbrush.  He could not believe his luck ;o)

Oliver's 1.5 mitts.  He'll get the rest when I get over having to rip out an entire section because I knit the cable the wrong way.

Benjamin being ridiculously excited about his new ipod touch.

Braidon being quite creepy about his.

If you look at this picture hard enough, you can actually hear the scream coming from her mouth.  Or maybe my ears are just still ringing...

Anna's scream wasn't any lower than Olivia's, but this picture is so sweet.  She loves her Ruthie.

This is actually a better picture of my dad, but it's the only one where you can see how happy Saragh was about her new barn.  Her animals get slaughtered everyday now.  Except for the sheep, she sheers them for Mama!

Oh my!  A spinning wheel just for me.  Now, if I could just figure out how to use it...

Brownies Can Do Anything

Yes they can!  I thought I would take a minute (or 5) to tell you why we are now a fully invested Girl Scout family.  We've known for years that we wanted the boys to be in Boys Scouts and we are charter members of a great troop, but I have always been a bit apathetic about Girl Scouts.  I was a girl scout off and on while I was growing up, mostly off and I really didn't get much out of it.  But, last year, Olivia wanted to give it a try and my friend needed a co-leader for a Daisy troop, so off we went.  Even throughout the year, I was not fully invested and if Olivia didn't want to continue the next year, I was perfectly fine with that (I'm one of those really odd parents that would love it if my kids weren't involved in anything, I guard our family time very jealously). 

But then in May, our troop went to Encampment which is an area-wide event that brings girls of all ages together to do fun things and spend time together.  The first thing that struck me was that a troop of older girls offered to let us hang out with them for the day; we got to eat lunch with them, they helped the girls navigate the games, and they really made a point of fully engaging those little girls in whatever they were doing.  It really impressed me that these adolescent girls would give up the freedom they otherwise would have had, just to help our little Daisies feel comfortable at their first Encampment.  Never once did it appear that they would rather not have our girls there.

The next thing that really effected me was at SWAPS time.  Because the Daisies are so little, they only swap with cadets so that it's not so overwhelming for them.  Now, I didn't realize this before, but the older girls really  put some time and effort into their SWAPS and have really extensive collections.  They were totally willing to open up their collections to the little girls, who obviously don't have the same skill level when it comes to making SWAPS.  Again, not one girl appeared to have negative feelings about this.

After we had our SWAPS, we lined up for a little procession to the big circle where we were about to have the bridging ceremony.  The Daisies are first in line and then Brownies, Juniors, etc. all the way up.  When the procession started, we marched to a big field area and made a circle.  As we were marching in the circle, I looked back and saw this huge line of girls and women and it just hit me that all of these girls had grown up in this awesome environment with the encouragement and support of these wonderful women who were giving their time and talent to the girls.  I saw girls laughing and chatting with their leaders, obviously well bonded.  We sat next to a troop of high school girls who were talking about needing to leave after dinner.  Two of them had Confirmation the next day and one of them had a date.  Her leader asked her who her date was with and when the girl gave his name, the leader exclaimed excitedly.  It was quite clear that she was privvy to information about this boy because the girl had confided in her.  Well, let me tell you, there is more that impressed me that evening, butthat hooked me right there.  The fact that that girl had confided this information about this boy to her troop leader made me want to run over and hug that woman and thank her for being such a trusted adult.

Before the bridging ceremony, we were told that it is tradition in our area that the Daisies give the graduating seniors a flower.  The graduating seniors had done it as Daisies and now it was coming full circle for them.  The bridging ceremony starts with the Daisies that are bridging to Brownies and goes on up from there.  So, you can imagine how excited everyone was to see the seniors bridge to adult status.  It was truly moving to see how proud the graduating girls were and to see how much their leaders love them.  It was particularly striking because my oldest daughter was one of the Daisies handing them their flowers.  I could clearly imagine her as a senior, getting her own flower from a Daisy and remembering that she was once that little girl.

So, all of these things led to me to the conclusion that Girl Scouting is something that I really want my girls to do.  The idea that they could grow up, surrounded by that much love and support is incredibly appealing to me.  I think that the more supportive and caring adults that they can count on in the next few years, the better their chances of becoming really great women. How lucky these girls are.

Yes, Brownies can do anything because they have supportive and trusted adults to help them navigate through the very windy roads as they grow up. 

August??? What August???

And for that matter, I missed half of September as well!  Things have been so crazy here lately, I won't even go into all the things that have happened to keep me away from this space.  Mostly, our family life and the goings on here have been quite overwhelming for me to even process, let alone write about.  I do have several things to share from the last few weeks, but it will take a few days. 

The most exciting and stressful thing has been our kitchen rennovation.  Things look so different in that room, it's amazing.  At thid point, the wall color has been updated, the new floor is in and the new cabinets are installed.  I have pre-counter tops and Oliver is working on the bookshelf so that he can fully install the counters.  Yes, yes, pictures will be up soon!

We started our new "school" year last week and things are chugging along just fine.  I would love to say that learning happens all the time here, and it does, but we really take the summers off from anything even remotely formal because the kids have "school" friends that are off then and all my best laid plans fall apart.

Our "Steady Routine" is falling into place and is making life here much calmer and happier.  I envy those family who can fully live an unschooling life, but we really need a bit more structure to make things work here.  As much as I love to sleep in, I have found that I am a better mama if I have an hour to myself in the morning without anyone pulling on me or asking me questions.  So I get up at 7 and let the kids sleep until about 8 and then we're off with a bang!  I'm posting a scan of our routine here so you can see how it works.  I highly encourage you to head over to Steady Days and check it out for yourself.

So, there it is, you now know what we are (or should be) doing at any given point during the day.  The great part about this routine is that we can change or abandon it whenever the mood strikes us.   We're not stuck with it, but we do use it to fall back on when things are getting crazy and it makes our family groove. 

Well, now I have to go sort through pictures to (hopefully) get some more posts up here.  I'll try not to abandon you again for so long, but I can't make any promises.

Sunday Dinner

What could be better then homemade waffles, scrambled eggs and watermelon for Sunday dinner outside in the cool evening breeze?  Maybe the massive watermelon fight started by a certain Mama and ending with one boy up in a tree while his Dad waits on the ground, hose in hand.  Yup, that's how we roll here at the Eikenberry Nuthouse.